Reversal of Acute Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Using the Practical Application of Neurodiagnostic Evaluation Process: A Case Study

In 2005, a patient in my practice developed complex regional pain syndrome type 1 (CRPS 1) after bunion surgery. The condition was properly diagnosed within 4 weeks with a diagnostic technique that I routinely use to diagnose chronic musculoskeletal pain, and it was successfully treated. The tests, which are based on primitive and postural reflexes in infants, were adapted to reflect normal and abnormal motor behaviors in adults after provocation of reflexes of the autonomic nervous system (afferent C fibers in peripheral nerves). Approximately 60 days after my patient's operation, the tests indicated a positive reflex at the posterior tibial nerve in the operated foot. Surgery to remove an accessory ossicle from the talus adjacent to this nerve resolved the CRPS 1 within 2 weeks. Since CRPS 1 is a dysfunctional state of the autonomic regulatory control of pain, it was postulated that a test based on autonomic nerve function could isolate the source of CRPS 1. The Practical Application of Neurodiagnostic Evaluation process was shown to be diagnostic for the cause of acute CRPS 1 and to allow its reversal. Further evaluation of the test for diagnosis and treatment of CRPS is needed.