CRPSbe
I am with you on this one - there are reportedly people who have CRPS and experience no pain. It is formally classified in the more forward thinking countries as a neurological condition and not "just" a pain condition. Pain is only one of the myriad of signs/symptoms that can be found with this condition. I am sick to death of doctors repeatedly telling me that motor disorder is not a feature of CRPS - how many published articles do I have to point them to before they realise that they are fundamentally plain wrong!

Jimking - I have to disagree with the point I think you were making - I don't agree that the use of "complex" in the name conveys the fact that this is a condition with a lot of non-pain serious signs and symptoms - it just suggests a "not simple" pain condition.

I think the quoted text taken from the article that Mlsday's posted (that started this thread) is a bit jumbled and is not especially new or persuasive. Call me cynical but I am seeing very little genuinely new stuff coming out on CRPS and I am not convinced that anything is actually changing in terms of any of these recent articles "proving" that it is a real condition (there has been a bit of quite excited discussion in other threads here about that recently). I think a great deal of evidence based medicine exists already but we are simply up against basic human prejudice, apathy and abject ignorance (in both the medical profession and the general population). The de-nervation evidence that was recently reported isn't really new either - that has been shown previously and published based on work done on examining tissue biopsies.

For me the non-pain problems are of more significance than the pain. I am significantly disabled, not from pain, but from the movement disorder problems that have come as part of my CRPS package. The UK seriously lags behind other countries, not in its recognition of CRPS as a genuine, incurable and potentially devastating condition (which it does), but in its approaches to treatment and its interest in performing any real research. The numbers of CRPS sufferers estimated to exist in the UK are very small - around 11 500 so it commands virtually no interest in the medical profession here. Its not something that people can understand or relate to, like cancer, and no drug company is going to get rich from developing CRPS treatments so it doesn't command the same sympathy or interest factor as other conditions where large numbers of people will pour money and donations into research and treatment.

I think referring to CRPS as a "pain" condition, however complicated, does nothing to help the cause of those of us who have problems with the non-pain related symptoms and over-simplifies a condition with much wider neurological effects.