Auberon,

Had you not written: I have seen it noted that some people have used hundreds of ABSRACTS to form their ideas. This is at the very least worrisome. I would not have commented here at all.

Since I am (to my knowledge) the only person here to have written about extensive use of abstracts, and I only wrote those words days ago, I have to assume that was directed toward me and that others would read those words -- written by a scientist -- and assume I must be irrelevant. A reply was necessary.

Here is how I used abstracts to conclude that explanations for traumatic nerve damage as the cause of RSD are nonsense, and why abstracts convinced me that ischemia-reperfusion injury explains every sign and symptom of this disease.

I read, or skimmed, hundreds of abstracts about RSD that I found at PubMed and MedScape, and didn't find a single one that referred to research showing that nerve damage causes RSD. Had I found such an abstract, I might have paid money to read the full article.

Thousands of people who suffer from this disease die every year, yet I have not seen a single abstract describing necropsies that found nerve damage. The one abstract that did involve necropsies found minor nerve damage in a few of the samples, but NONE that could explain the signs and symptoms of this disease [1].

In my review of abstracts on the subjects of the immune response to trauma, oxygen free radicals (OFRs) and ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI), I found many describing in VIVO and in VITRO research, and all of them substantially agreed with one another.

The cause and course of IRI is clearly understood and almost universally agreed upon, and I was able, with my lay-persons education, augmented by what I had learned by more than two years of my studies, to extrapolate how every sign and symptom of RSD (including symptom migration) is explained by IRI.

2. FOR ALL READERS:
My present problem is that body systems cannot be considered in isolation.

Auberon, my problem is that every neurological explanation of RSD is just that: Limited to one body system; the nervous system. And none of the conclusions I found were supported by objective research. The bottom line with all of them is: "Because I'm an expert and I say so".

Vicc: I have ONE question and would like to address just ONE question at a time from what you have raised. First, an abstract that doesn’t discuss some method / process is an Extension Article written for people without the technical base to understand the article.

I found many abstracts discussing RSD that didn't require much in the way of technical understanding, but unfortunately, none of them made a bit of sense.

In order to understand IRI, one must understand the immune response to trauma and specifically the role of polymorphonuclear leukocytes and OFRs in that response. It took me nearly two years to feel confident that I had learned enough about them, so some technical knowledge is necessary, but such knowledge is not beyond the lay-persons ability to understand.

If I read your posts correctly, as I understand the terms, phrases etc I appear to be either full of ******** with some kindred spirits or I have a superfluous thermometer uncomfortably placed.

I don't know whether you carry a rectal thermometer, but your claim to be a scientist does conjure the image of the lab coat (and ya gotta admit that was an eye-catching line: I stole it from Lewis Black). If you place yourself in league with "experts" who don't use science to explain RSD, I guess you are full of ******** too.

I am hugely concerned with improving my quality of life(QOL) – and should I find a valid approach I would be more than willing to share….the trouble is it doesn’t yet exist. Why not investigat IRI? Your education and training should allow you to reach some conclusions in far less time than I took; and if you disagree with me you will have scientific reasoning to support your view.

(Others would find such a discussion/debate incredibly uninteresting, but I would be overjoye to find someone who could discuss that topic).

For Michael: I agree and even though the Clinical Journal of Pain Articles can be difficult to grab they help. The small price for the few select articles I have purchased have been worth their weight in gold as they are right on the money.

First, Mike doesn't just post articles from that journal; almost any article that mentions Il-6 is fair game for him, and I daresay you would have a difficult time understanding all the medspeak found in them. The rest of us can't understand a bit of it, so these articles are virtually useless.

Second, at the risk of calling in a new plague of medspeak, why not share one of these priceless articles with us? Just try to limit yourself to research that addresses RSD specifically, and not chronic pain, which is vastly different...Vic

(added later): The program somehow made the font on my tag line much smaller than intended, and the edit option does not allow one to change font size. Sorry about that.


A [ ] with a number inside means I will email you a copy of the article cited. Just click the “rsd_hbot” link at the bottom of the page and type in the title of the post and the number(s) you want to receive.