I previously mentioned that physical therapy on my knees and ankle was something of a wash. I also mentioned my wrist injury that appears to be in the RSI realm. The wrist seems to be improving, though I have to say that I found 800mg (four tablets) of naproxen sodium three times a day a slightly unsettling dosage when the package directions say "Do not exceed one tablet every twelve hours unless instructed by a doctor."
I've subsequently seen my orthopedist again, and I'm supposed to be getting a call back from his surgical aide to schedule arthroscopic surgery on my left knee. I haven't gotten the call yet though.
I've also spoken again with my chronic pain specialist. We've pretty much concluded that although the temporary nerve block (via injected medication) worked for a few days, the nerve ablation block -- which was supposed to be effective for 6 to 8 months -- basically didn't work at all, although the monitoring indicated pretty clearly that he did indeed hit the sympathetic sciatic nerve as intended. Needless to say, this isn't good news, because it means the problem has advanced beyond sympathetic pain to spinal "memory" (as I understand it, something like a hysteresis effect, in which in long-term chronic pain cases the spinal cord "remembers" the pain signal, and starts generating the signal by itself even when it's not otherwise present).
We're not going any further before the upcoming knee surgery, but the next step is probably to implant a nerve stimulator in my back in an effort to "jam" the spinal pain signal. And if that doesn't work, well, as I understand it, at the present state of the art there isn't anything else left after that to try; we're then under the heading of "intractable chronic pain". (Which is to say, untreatable.)