Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a neurological disorder that rewrites how a person's nervous systems interpret incoming information, translating everything into pain signals. This bombards a person's system to the point where other functions get put to the wayside, affecting everything from the ability to walk, muscle coordination, muscle strength, concentration, cognitive function, alters the overall health of a person's organs, and more. Everything gets interpreted as pain, and actual pain makes our bodies respond like we're in full-blown crisis mode when it's only a papercut. 

This disorder primarily impacts mobility and range of motion, but can lead to the development of depression, anxiety, organ complications, and PTSD from the pain flares, how we're handled by medical professionals, or the original accident (if there was one).

A CRPS diagnosis does not guarantee you will be or are disabled, but it can be disabling to some depending on the severity of it and where you're affected. CRPS presents differently in every patient, making it extraordinarily hard to diagnose, and adds to the complexity behind the simple question, "do I need a service dog?" 

Is it cheaper to train your own service dog instead of going through a service dog program or private board & train program? 

You tell me. 

​Any avenue you choose to go about obtaining a service dog partner will be expensive in some way. Of that I can almost guarantee. There is no such thing as a free service dog. Not really. To help illustrate this for you, I've broken down a few prominent costs involved with owner-training a service dog, based on my own experiences.