Hello,
So I am extremely new to this. I found this condition after several months of researching my symptoms, visiting w/ a rheumatologist, and getting a ton of blood work done. My rheumatologist also said she has had this in mind for a while but didn't know whether to bring it up or not. My Raynaud's test came back negative and i have no signs of any vascular disease. My symptoms are the following:
- feet and hands get flaming hot and red (like a stop sign) when i enter rooms of different temps., am under emotional stress, and have a lot of anxiety. Also it happens when i get out of the shower.
- feet randomly swell as the redness occurs sometime, but not my hands
- only occurs on the backs of my hands, but on both sides of fingers
- my feet turn blue/ purple when they touch things like bare tile, but my fingers turn red when cold
- along w/ the redness and burning, i feel a tingling sensation that feels like small needles and sometimes nerve pain
I have tried Lyrica (did nothing) and Amitriptyline (made things so much worse). I have had this problem for about a year, but I have had knee surgery on both legs. This is when things went haywire. I had knee surgery in August 2015 to remove the plica in my right knee and everything was fine; however, i had the same operation done on my left knee in December 2015, but the difference was that they did a nerve block where they entered through my groin (no clue what nerve that it nor do i know the medicine they used). When i woke up, i was never told that i wouldn't be able to walk because of the numbness, so i did fall twice- once getting in the car and once getting into the house (even w/ the help of crutches). They said i should have all feel back in 7 hrs. That wasn't the case. After 72 hrs, i started to gain almost all feeling back. The doctor said that any team doing the nerve block usually gives too much or too little medicine, but in my case this was a big problem. Ever since this surgery my symptoms from before severely worsened. My surgeon/orthopedist saw me not much after the surgery when one day my ankle to toe was beat red and swollen like a balloon. He said he had never seen anything like this and he called the anesthesiologist, but neither could find its exact cause, so this is when i was suggested to see a rheumatologist. Does anyone know any possible doctors i could see in the Atlanta area who deal with patients w/ Erythromelalgia?