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In Remembrance
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: SE Kansas.
Posts: 374
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In Remembrance
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: SE Kansas.
Posts: 374
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Hi Janet,
When doctors began prescribing Vioxx to RSD patients I stayed silent. I can't do that again.
In their frustrations in trying to help their patients (and to win against disease, which is their job), many doctors have resorted to trying almost anything, and they are risking serious harm to their patients when the desire to win becomes more important to reliance upon science.
RSD is not anything close to mobic or any other type of arthritis. The only known similarities between these disorders is the tiny amount of research into to the role of oxygen free radicals in both disorders; but OFRs have been identified in over 100 disorders, and at any rate, this drug is not useful as an antioxidant.
Relieving the pain of RSD may seem worth almost any risk, but it isn't; not when that risk involves unnecessarily dangerous side-effects and shows no potential for helping RSD. Many drugs physicians use in their "shotgun" approach to treating this disease fall into this category.
I will now ignite a minor fire-storm by adding ketamine to this list. I consider the research questionable; especially in the context of other so-called RSD research that claimed an efficacy that was not disproved soon enough to prevent further damage to patients. Schwartzmann's claims for "permanent relief" of RSD symptoms by surgical sympathectomy comes quickly to mind.
As you see by this post, I am still trying to do what I can in my fight against this disease. I won't promise I can continue, but if I can my next major post will explain why RSD is not, and cannot be, a neurological disorder. I realize I have never really explained this.
Meanwhile, although I am probably violating some sort of law, I urge you not to take this medication. It holds only risk and no potential at all for help.
I am letting many people down by not sharing all that I've learned about this disease, and no one who has read what I have written has any reason to pay any attention to what I say at this moment. but some of you have said that what you understand of what I've written seems to make sense; please take this into account when making a decision now.
Refusing a med may anger some doctors, and finding docs willing to write appropriate pain prescriptions is a real problem, but your doc should respect your questions about the safety and efficacy of any drug; and answer those questions honestly. He is not the one who will suffer the harm from dangerous side effects...Vic
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