Skip to content

After talking with patients, doctors, and loved ones — and, as a trained observer, carefully noticing the changes in posture, expression, and tone as I’ve done so — I’ve arrived at the following conclusion. I realize it flies in the face of current accepted usage, but there are some things wrong with current accepted usage, and I don’t mind saying so.

/SeeYarP’Yes/ is not that hard to say.

No, it’s not proper to call it CRiPS unless you yourself have it. This is partly because “crips” is a term of abuse for disabled people and using the term for a particular set of disabled people won’t change that, and partly because Crips is the name of a violent organized crime group originating from Southern California. Neither is an appropriate form of address for those who have the most disruptive and intransigent pain disease known to science, and can’t perpetrate violence because of the devastation it wreaks in their own bodies.

Those who have this disease sure don’t need to be subliminally messaged with either association.

I understand that young docs are being trained to use the term in order to remind themselves that it is, in fact, a disabling disease. My view is that, if you’re smart enough to graduate from medical school, you’re smart enough to remember that disruption of the central nervous system can be pretty freaking disabling, in CRPS as in spinal injury or Alzheimer’s or anything else that disrupts the normal structure, chemistry, and behavior of the central nervous system.

The fact that the current name focuses on “pain” is a problem of nomenclature, which will change again as it often has since the year 1548 when it was first described by Ambroise Paré, father of forensic medicine and physician to the French court at the time. (Look him up — great guy. Prefigured that outstanding physician and gifted schmooze-meister Dr. Silas Weir by over 300 years.)

CRaPS, as in the game of chance, is not recommended. It sounds like a vulgar term for bowel excretions, which is — if possible — even more inappropriate. It’s certainly a “crappy” disease, but having said that, it’s time to move on and not keep reminding someone that they feel (and believe they look) like shit.

Of course your CRPS patients say they don’t mind. Check the power differential; their ability to bear to live is in your hands, doctor/loved one, so they’re highly motivated to be nice and go along with anything that doesn’t involve an immediate threat. They want you to feel good about them, so they will laugh along with you, however unreal it feels.

Have some decency — don’t call them or their disease CRiPS or CRaPS, even if they say it’s okay. They don’t need to feel any worse than they already do.

The CRPS patients can call it whatever they like, because only they know how bad it really is, and have the right — and need — to cuss it now and then.

/SeeYarP’Yes/ is not that hard to say. It’s only 4 syllables, like “pain diseases” or “really bad day.” It’s 20% shorter than the word “dehumanizing.”

This moment of intellectual — and emotional — honesty has been brought to you by a nightmare I woke up with this morning. My nightmares are a direct result of my disordered central nervous system, which can no longer process things normally and has to roil around and tear up the pavement in between the constant push-back and re-organization that takes place in my waking state.

It’s pretty crappy, not to mention crippling. But I rise above it, yet again, as I intend to do every day until the day I die. I sure appreciate anything others can do to avoid making that harder.

2 thoughts on “CRPS terminology, under the nervous grin”

  1. Unfortunately, I can not wait for the name of it to change. Everyone that hears pain in the name of the condition automatically puts you in a category with addicts. I am not nor will I ever be addicted to anything. Yes I live with CRPS daily and hate when someone asks what “CRPS” stands for just because of the name of it so I have quit telling them and started explaining it to people.

    1. Brilliant. I admire your patience with explaining.

      There are two huge problems with the word “pain”, one of which is the “oh you [expletive] addicts” response, as you mentioned. The other is that everyone else, including providers, thinks they understand about pain.

      CRPS pain is *a whole different kettle of fish.* It is NOT like any other pain out there. A fractured femur? Piece of cake. Unmedicated childbirth? Training wheels. This pain, due to the physical changes in the brain and spinal cord, create types and intensities of pain that non-CRPS people *simply can never feel*, as well as the nuanced yet relentless disruptions of so many other body systems tied into the relevant parts of the central nervous system.

      I totally agree that pain should not be in the name, because it simultaneously fixes people’s attention, and confuses them to the point that they can’t understand that *they can’t understand.* Sigh.

Leave a Reply to Joni Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *