The 39-year-old Iowan's symptoms were classic for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). CRPS is caused by an aberrant response to nerve injury that causes constant inflammation of the nerve. Ms. Bagosy lived with the pain for three years. An interventional pain procedure was ineffective. Narcotics were also useless and caused so many side effects one day she simply threw them in the garbage. She says, "For a long time I thought nothing could take away the pain of this disease. Nothing."
But Ms. Bagosy refused to face a lifetime of pain...and the risk of suicide "I've never backed away from a battle," she says. "I knew I had to find an answer."
Then last year Ms. Bagosy learned about a new treatment called Calmare on the web. Italian researchers discovered the treatment in the 1980s when they discovered a synchronized, microprocessor-controlled series of electric potentials delivered to tissue adjacent to pain could relieve the neuropathic pain caused by chemotherapy.