...Dear Inspiretoday,

I'm sorry to learn of the challenges you are facing due to RSD. Like you, I too have RSD in my mouth. In fact, along with my head, face, ears, neck and lower back, my mouth (and everything in it) was one of the places where my RSD began. It, as you know, is not an easy thing to live with.

Where I got lucky is that, like you, I have been working with an academic medical center with a strong dental school. For the past 5 years, I've been a patient of one of the Oral Medicine doctors who specializes in orofacial pain and has an expertise in the trigeminal nerve (cranial nerve V). Is there an Oral Medicine department at your University Dental Clinic? Or an Orofacial pain specialist? If so, I would recommend making an appointment for a consult.

In all candor, the Oral Medicine doctor I see has been more knowledge about and been more willing to treat my RSD than most Pain Management doctors I've encountered. Perhaps I just got lucky. Then again, I prefer to think it has much to do with the fundamental role of a doctor of Oral Medicine - to bridge the fields of Medicine and Dentistry for patients with complex, systemic diseases that have oral components.