Thanks Sandel for an interesting thread.
I think what I have come to learn is that there are as many differences as there are similarities in this disease and this is what makes it so damn difficult to get a universal opinion on cause, treatment and prognosis.
I think that sometimes there is confusion when RSD/CRPS may be said to be the result of a nerve injury when in fact it appears that the last 30 years or so of research have established it a disease of part the nervous system and only CRPS TYPE 2 will show any identifiable nerve injury.

I think what really needs to be established before we can hope for a definitive answer to both diagnosis and treatment is to find why this disease occurs in SOME people but not others?
What is the trigger that causes one person to suffer a paper cut and develop RSD/CRPS yet others with major injuries just go on to get completely better iwithin the expected time frame.

I think that before I developed this disease I would have said I was DEFINITELY NOT the sort of person who would succumb to anything so debilitating. I simply had no time in my life to be sick so why did I get it when people have had injuries like mine and got better

I am content however that I am in good hands with my treatment as my team travel the world attending conferences that help them keep them at the forefront but having said that, even though my team get excellent results with their methods of treatment they will still admit they do NOT know what sets off this awful chain of events in our sympathetic /autonomic nervous system in SOME people and all the terrible consequences of this to our vascular and immune responses.

It will be a wonderful day when we are able to get the answers we so deserve.
Regards Tayla