Hi Debby,

Unfortunately there is no test to determine if RSD pain is Independently Maintained or Sympathetically Maintained however my Pain Management Doctor and Neurologist said that mine was because the nerve blocks didn't work and made me worse instead of better and the medications haven't worked for me so far at all yet!

During Physical Therapy, my PT's were also noticing some "strange" symptoms and said that the RSD was in my Brain and Central Nervous System which is why non of the medications or treatments had worked! Not many people have RSD in the brain so I have been told but they can usually test you to see how you walk, if you fall a lot, how you talk etc etc and it was found that my results came back pretty abnormal!!!

I've been told that Doctors usually determine whether you have SMP (Sympathetically Maintained Pain) or IMP (Independently Maintained Pain) by whether or not the medications or treatments work for you - in my case, non of the medications that we had tried after a period of time worked and nor did the nerve blocks which is why my PM and Neurologist said I had IMP. You usually tend to find that if you have IMP that nothing really works for you, even though you may have tried lots of drugs and if you have SMP, you usually find something that works, even though it might take a bit of time!

I hope that made sense and that I wasn't rambling - if you have anymore questions, please let me know!