A Paralympian explained why she chose to have her leg amputated after a fall that seemed mild escalated into chronic pain

• A skier who made her Winter Paralympics debut last week explained why she had her leg amputated.
• Shona Brown elected to have her leg removed after six years of debilitating pain.

A Paralympian described her decision to have her leg amputated below the knee to alleviate a chronic pain condition that meant she wasn't able to use her foot for six years.

Shona Brownlee, a Paralympic skier and member of the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF), told the BBC she had developed a condition called complex regional pain syndrome after an injury she initially thought was only mild.

In 2012, Brownlee was looking to join the RAF as a musician — she had been passionate about the French horn since childhood, the BBC reported.

Then, during basic training, she slipped off a ledge. "I thought I'd just twisted my ankle and would be able to walk it off," she said in a blog post for Blesma, an association for veterans who have lost limbs.

"When I got back to base and took my boot off, my leg was black and blue, it was bruised up to my knee and very swollen," she said.

Brownlee told Blesma she first thought she'd been lucky to avoid a broken leg. But, she said, "a break would have been much better."

Brownlee's injury ultimately developed into an illness called complex regional pain syndrome, she said.

For Brownlee, it meant her foot was "useless for six years," she said.

"It swelled up, and I couldn't walk on it at all," she said. To get around, she had to use crutches.

Complex regional pain syndrome is a poorly understood chronic condition that causes continuous, intense pain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

The condition often arises after an injury, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Typically, in complex regional pain syndrome, the nerves that carry pain signals to the brain start firing too intensely, causing pain and inflammation, per the NIH.

In most cases, the condition will get better over time, but in rare cases, the condition can be long-lasting and profoundly disabling.

After six years of pain, a friend of Brownlee quipped that she should have her leg "chopped off." The friend had himself elected to have an amputation. At first, Brownlee said she was horrified, per the BBC.

But she eventually came around to the idea.

"I didn't want to be on crutches or have to deal with that level of pain for the rest of my life, so off it came," she told Blesma.

"Straight after surgery, I felt much better. I was happy, and now I realize how much it had been affecting me," she said.

Brownlee has been pain free since her recovery from the operation, per the BBC.

It was during her rehabilitation, supported by an RAF program for injured troops, that Brownlee learned the sport that would ultimately bring her to the Paralympics.

"I'd never skied before my injury," she said, per the International Paralympic Committee website. "It's a cliché, but it's true that skiing gives you freedom."

By the 2019/2020 season, Brownlee had 3 gold medals at the British Para Alpine Championships.

She made her debut at the Winter Paralympics in Beijing last week, per the BBC. As of Friday, she had come sixth in one event, ninth in another, and had one still to come.