Please support the You Are Not Alone Team.  Your gift willl help the Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association (RSDSA) continue to fund research, educate medical professionals, send children to pediatric pain camp, hold young adult weekends, and continue other support programs.  RSDSA's mission is to provide support, education, and hope to all affected by the pain and disability of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) while driving research to develop better treatments and a cure.

CRPS is considered the most painful condition on the McGill Pain Scale.  It is a rare, neuroinflammatory syndrome characterized by intense chronic pain, swelling, tropic changes, vascular changes, and functional impairment of the limb.  

We were brought together by RSDSA's Young Adult Weekends.  Having CRPS can put a drain on your energy so much that you do not have much of a social life or many friends.  These weekends allow us to do something we would not usually get a chance to do with new friends who truly understand what each other is going through.

Among the young adults in attendence a great bond is felt since we are all experiencing CRPS.  Even though CRPS is different for everyone there is an unspoken understanding that is felt.  After the weekends are over we have kept in touch and have a facebook support group.  This allows us to have a peer group to reach out to for support, encouragement, or advice if needed.   

The activities and discussions that occurred during these weekends help us be able to completely accept the diagnosis of CRPS and own it proudly.  The discussions are centered around living life with CRPS and, most importantly, advocacy and being able to verbalize what we need and not be ashamed or afraid.