Stories

20 years with systemic RSD

July 11, 2022

Nikki Lazan RSD,Reflex sympathetic dystrophy
In 1999 I was working as a correctional deputy for the Riverside County Sheriff Dept (CA). I kept dropping my jail keys, losing grip strength and very fatigued. With 12 hour work days, this wore me down. By 2001, while working our jail ward at the hospital an ortho doctor noticed my hands were super white but with red splotches. He asked “how long” “about 2 years” “close this door and go straight to a doctor. You need a dx now!” He wasn’t wrong. After being braced bilaterally for a month (carpal tunnel dx) the next dr I saw for follow up through the braces in the trash; “you have RSD from a nerve pinched in your elbow (cubital tunnel syndrome) and surgery isn’t an option because of the RSD”. “Huh?” That was April 2001 by June of 2003 I had been placed on worker’s comp and now had gone full body with this burning disease and told to “live with it”. (4 separate neurologist all dxed the same).

20 years later, I’m medically retired (7year legal fight, I was only 29 when I was Dxed).

Author: Nikki Lazan

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