Great question - I'm curious about this too.

Early on in my diagnosis, I kept coming across research where people had entrapped nerves causing the RSD symptoms, where surgery to release them spontaneously resolved most symptoms. One medical researcher swore up and down that most (70%+) cases of RSD were caused by nerve entrapment. Thought it was frickin' scary and way risky to explore the surgery route at the exact site of origination though. Especially since surgery was the RSD trigger for me. And I've read way more case studies and anecdotal reports of further surgery doing the opposite.

But I don't disagree that there are probably a fair number of cases out there where nerve entrapment is the primary initiatior - most likely cases that resulted from a significant original trauma like surgery or a severe sprain.