FWD:Oakdale Woman Won't Let Pain Rule Her Life

Monday, November 27, 2006
Oakdale woman won't let pain rule her life
<STYLE type=text/css>.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }</STYLE>


TwinCities_comPioneerPress, originally uploaded by rsdscrpsnews.
Oakdale woman won't let pain rule her life
Posted on Mon, Nov. 20, 2006
BY RHODA FUKUSHIMA
Pioneer Press

In June 2005, Kristi Caldwell of Oakdale was vacationing with her daughters and friends at Marine on St. Croix. A part-time personal trainer, Caldwell was in good shape. But while waterskiing, she fell, blacked out and, unbeknownst to her, tore her right hamstring off the bone and severed her sciatic nerve. An X-ray didn't reveal the problem, and a doctor told her it would heal on its own. But Caldwell didn't improve, and she was in horrific pain. She got an MRI, consulted an orthopedic surgeon and had surgery immediately.

"When I woke up, I was crying like a baby. I was in severe pain. It wasn't from the hamstring. It was because the sheet was touching my leg. It was a totally new kind of pain. It's like a thousand bee stings under your skin.

"The next day, they (the physical therapists) tried to teach me how to walk on a crutch. I was still having horrible pain on the inside of my thigh. My leg started turning purple and was freezing cold. My foot was like an ice cube.

"My husband was in Iraq at the time. I was living with my sister-in-law. She was taking care of me.

"I went back to the orthopedic surgeon. He barely touched the back of my leg and I just started bawling. He suspected something else was wrong. He told me I had to get into a pain clinic immediately.

"The day I was scheduled to go to the pain center was the day my husband was scheduled to come home. When I met my husband, I was in a wheelchair. It wasn't the homecoming I had planned, but he was just so happy to be home.

"I was diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome/chronic regional pain syndrome. More than likely, the trauma of the accident caused me to develop this condition.

"The sympathetic part of the nervous system controls the fight-or-flight response. My nervous system is in that heightened mode. The injured body part becomes extremely sensitive.

"I had been a very devoted gym-goer. With my husband in Iraq, working out got me through the days. I was at the gym at 5:45 a.m. five days a week. To abruptly stop was extremely difficult.

"I was doing sit-ups in bed — a week after surgery. My sister-in-law wanted to kill me. I started doing weights. With the brace, it was really difficult to walk. But I still kept that six-pack, let me tell you.

"For six to 10 weeks after surgery, physical therapists came to my house. You're really not supposed to exercise when you have RSD. They had no idea I had RSD. I was doing things that were good for the hamstring but bad for the RSD.

"RSD will never go away, but I had a 90 percent chance of going into remission when I got in to see the doctor. They gave me three spinal injections to calm down the nervous system, but they didn't work.

"The pain gets so severe you want to cut off the body part. I have to be very careful around knives, heat and cold weather. If I cut my finger, the RSD spreads because of the trauma.

"I take 17 pills in the morning and 13 at night. I also have fibromyalgia, which was under control until the RSD.

"I started going to the YMCA in Woodbury. My physical therapist applies Japanese kinesio tape for the pain. I do healing touch. I get on the Migun thermal massage bed.

"I had a cleaning business, which I had to close down. I go to the Courage Center for job retraining. I started a branch of an RSD support group.

"I just try not to focus on it. I try to stay busy. I'm very involved with my church.

"I have accepted that I am changed. I have bad days where I can't get out of bed or feed myself. But then I just think, 'I'm going to get through this, God.' It might be a couple of days, sometimes a week.

"I'm not going to let it take over my life."

Have you turned the corner toward good health? If so, we want to hear your story. Please e-mail your ideas to rgfukushima@pioneerpress.com (no attachments, please), call Rhoda Fukushima at 651-228-5444, or mail them to Turning Point, c/o Rhoda Fukushima, 345 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55101.

For more Turning Points, go to www.twincities.com/health.