Not much goes on on this forum. Go over to the Chronic pain forum. More activity over there. Look into Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

Hi-
This is my story. It will not be yours, but I wanted to share.

I have had RSD for 19 and a half years. When I was 34, I got pregnant. I was told that I couldn't get pregnant without IVF, but after years of trying, I stopped trying & was surprised to death to find myself pregnant. I was on morphine and diazepam for RSD. I stopped both the minute I found out but had a terrible reaction. I called my doc who told me that I didn't need to stop the meds and that doing so would likely cause a miscarriage. My OB and the genetic doc I saw said that the pain of RSD was so bad and the shock of withdrawal, that both put me at high risk for miscarriage.

I stayed on the meds but lowered my dose on my own. I was in my 7th month when I had bleeding & fluid leaking. The idiot nurse at labor/delivery sent me home without doing a simple test that would've proved that my water had broken. She didn't call my OB even though I was high risk, and my OB had flagged my chart that she was to be contacted if I had so much as a hangnail. The nurse sent me home having done no ultrasound or litmus test. She was very strange and said I was an overreacting first time mother and I only had a UTI.

The next day I came home from the store to find the umbilical cord between my legs. It was a prolapsed cord. My water HAD broken. We rushed to hospital but they couldn't find a heartbeat. I delivered my precious Jacob on April 1st. He was stillborn. He was beautiful. He was my dream, an answer to our prayers. We buried him a week later.

What happened to me was not due to RSD or meds. I had an incompetent cervix. The next year, via IVF, I became pregnant again. I went through menopause at 34 and the docs all said that I got pregnant the first time because women have a surge before menopause that causes late-in-life pregnancies. Only I wasn't old. But to get pregnant again they had to start me on the pill! I had such low estrogen that it was crazy.

With the 2nd pregnancy, I had terrible right side pain. The fertility doc did ultrasounds bi-monthly, and they saw that my baby's heart had stopped. Then they found that I had a 2nd pregnancy in my right Fallopian tube. I was almost 12 weeks because they were already planning the cerclage, a stitch in my cervix that would've kept me from miscarrying due to incompetent cervix.

I think the moral of the story is that even though I had 2 tragedies, none were due to RSD or the meds. They both could've been stopped by proper medical care. The first nurse really, really messed up, and the OB should've listened to me about the pain I was feeling. The weight of the tubal pregnancy sort of pulled the healthy baby from the uterine lining.

My advice would be to ask your doctor, as RSD is such a difficult disease. And I would further say, make sure you seek a specialist in high risk pregnancies, as RSD definitely will complicate it. I SO wish that I'd known that. My OB had never heard of RSD and my pain doc back then had patients who had delivered healthy babies. They do need special care if you remain on meds bc they need to be weaned from the meds at birth, and there are risks. Maybe, these days, they would risk taking you off all meds? I just know that my case was mishandled big time.

RSD steals so much of our lives! Children add so much. If you're worried, there's always adoption. I never, ever thought I'd adopt, but we wanted a child and my body wasn't working. Now I have a wonderful, beautiful, amazing son whom I'd never imagine life without. Explore all your options and seek a lot of advice. And good luck, because you deserve it!!