I second what EJ said. I started with a deep "bone crushing pain," which was initially allieviated only by untrasound in PT sessions. A couple of months later, I developed intense sensitivity to compression. However, I didn't have my first color change until something like three years later!

Fear not, however, the easiest way (I was told) to establish a diagnosis was to see if I responded to series of sypmathetic nerve blocks, and because I received them within roughly 4 months of the advent of my symptoms, I did! No, it didn't cure me, but I had a pretty good diagnosis, one which was borne out with subtler physiological changes over time, e.g., nail and hair growth. (Of course, some 9 months into my symptoms, a peripheral neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN declared that I didn't have RSD; I just didn't know that she was in the midst of publishing a study of the "Incidence of RSD in Olmsted Co., Minn.," and was therefore heavily into the "objective" symptomatology of the disease.)

So be well. There are many paths to the alliviation of the suffering we call RSD. If that in fact is what it is.

Mike