On 12 October last, Mercedes broke the trochlea of her shoulder humerus. Two weeks later she was diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy or Sudeck’s dystrophy, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS).

“I was in excruciating pain, I couldn’t sleep. After referring me to three traumatologists, they took me to the pain clinic… I was desperate, I had a very bad time… I didn’t want to continue here….”.

The Cantabrian surgeon does not consider Sudeck’s dystrophy a pathology per se, but a diagnostic formula that masks an unidentified origin of the patient’s real problems, which appear after an operation, a fracture or an infectious process, among other preceding clinical contexts.