Imagine a Pain so Intense it rules your life

Imagine how it feels to have a million suns burning under your skin or feeling like a lightening bolt is being shot through your body 24/7

Imagine feeling all this pain at once and having doctors tell you that you’re making it up

Imagine have a syndrome that hardly anyone, even your local doctor, has heard of

Imagine having Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 

My name is Shira Strongin, I'm 12 years old and I don’t have to Imagine. It started on March 26 2010, I woke up feeling the sharp, shooting, stabbing, burning pain in my left knee on March 29th (my 11th birthday) I was put in a wheel chair. Shortly after that my knee became hypersensitive and my lower leg became numb. I had X-rays, MRIs, and CTs and nothing showed up and my symptoms continued to worsen, my leg became cold, blue, purple, red, and splotchy. Finally someone told us that I had RSD a rare neurovascular pain syndrome in which there is a malfunction in the central nervous system where the nerves in the affected area are sending mixed messages to the brain causing pain. I went to a three week inpatient rehab program at the Cleveland Clinic Pediatric Pain Program where I learned to walk again. In November the RSD spread to my right knee and lower leg and I was unable to walk again. This time we went to the Children's Institute in Pittsburgh. Now I experience RSD in both knees and lower legs, and occasionally in my spine and stomach. This walk is so important to me because on December 10th exactly one year ago I wasn't walking because my pain was too great.  As of now there is no cure for RSD, but the RSDSA (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association) is using the money they get from this walk to go towards research to find a cure. 

Imagine Curing Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy