Complex regional pain syndrome: a report of two cases recalcitrant to usual treatment protocols

I M Fox1, R Domsky, M J Frank

  • 1Department of Surgery, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Head, Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center, Camden, NJ, USA.

In this report the authors present a review of complex regional pain syndrome and two case reports of complex regional pain syndrome that were recalcitrant to the usual treatments. The first case presented is a middle-aged female who developed signs and symptoms of post-traumatic complex regional pain syndrome. The second case is a woman with a pre-existing history of complex regional pain syndrome whose condition worsened after surgery despite appropriate perioperative precautions. These cases are unique because in both cases an early diagnosis of complex regional pain syndrome was established, yet they were both resistant to the usual treatment protocols.