Hi Fledge
I have cpsp. Mine has built up slowly from 3 months. Hopefully this fairly quick summary will help.
As others have mentioned, there is no cure so the aim is pain management/reduction. As medical staff can’t test for the pain, they will ask for a scale of 1-10.
The medication used for cpsp was not designed for cpsp. There are two types used, both as surprising as it seems, were not initially for pain at all. It was later discovered they had some benefit for neuropathic pain also known as nerve pain.
1, anti epileptic. Often pregablin or gabapentin + others
2, anti depressants. Amitriptyline, nortriptyline, duloxetine + others
3, standard drugs such as paracetamol might not offer as much as they do for normal aches and pains.
4. These drugs in 1 and 2 take weeks to build up.
5. These drugs only work for a % of people and the evidence for helping with cpsp is sketchy. You may have to try a number of combinations of 1+2.
Baclofen might also be used for stiffness.
Could I suggest that as soon as your partner is near being out of rehab, ask for a neurology appointment via the rehab team or the GP. Look also for a referral to a pain clinic, mine is a department in the same hospital as neurology. Both for me had long waiting lists, wish I had tried sooner.
GPs, I have found offered little for cpsp itself, outside of their skill set.
If you have a dispensing pharmacist with a back ground in pain, they can help cycle through the medications and doses to find the right one/combination. Two lots of low doses 1 + 2 might have less side effects than a high dose of just one.
Warm is nice, cold is horrible. Stress, touch and movement can all trigger pain.
My 2 most used new items
Sit down (recumbant) exercise bike. Lots for sale on eBay but they are big and heavy.
Lightweight running trainers
You may find cpsp isnt widely understood by support teams like GPs and Physios. It will be referred to as chronic pain which is simply pain which lasts for a long time.
Hope this helps, wish you luck. My most valuable help in all of this, my other half for taking on the bureaucracy, chasing and getting to appointments and day to day things.
Cheers
Nigel