I digress slightly from the thread topic regarding the above comment.

Regardless of weather you are covered under a universal government program or a private insurance company there is little hope of having anything that is still in experimental stages funded.


I have a copy of a Clinical Policy Bulletin from a US based insurance company that states that they consider intravenous administration of ketamine and lidocaine experimental and investigational for the treatment of CRPS because its effectiveness for this indication has not been established.

Interestingly my "universal" health care insurance here in B.C., Canada has covered my intravenous lidocaine treatments for the past 5 years without any question. I don't have to deal with lifetime treatment caps. I guess IV lidocaine is not considered experimental here but that being said the one time cost of an IV lidocaine treatment is fairly negligible compared to that of the ketamine coma. My doctor is now offering some patients low dose ketamine infusions under our health care system so there are no out of pocket private payments required. The problem here is that this type of treatment is mainly only offered in major urban cities so it's not so easy for those located in Canada's rural areas. That's one reason why they doctors here started offering subcutaneous lidocaine. It' much more cost efficient with much the same results as the intravenous method.

I know health care is a hot topic for many of you located in the USA and the term "universal" is being bantered around like a dirty word during the current ongoing debate. It's not my intention to hijack the thread to discuss health care coverage issues but I think it is important to make it clear that neither a government funded "universal" health care program or a any of the "private" insurance companies are willing to fund such an extreme experimental treatment such as Ketamine coma.

If we are to get any where as a community of patients needing treatment this type of funding must come from individuals and corportaions. We need to work hard towards significant fundraising efforts if we are ever to get anywhere towards finding solid treatments for RSD/CRPS. That's one reason why it is so important to help organizations like RSDSA.org raise funds regardless of what country we live in our what health care coverage we fall under.

Judy I very much respect your wisdom and experiences with the ketamine coma treatment and all you have been through. I was not brave enough to follow your path through to fruition and I thank you for sharing your knowledge with us here. I'm very curious to learn why they put the Coma treatment on hold in Germany.

When I spoke with Dr. Rohr a few years back he had already stopped doing the low dose 10 day awake infusions because he did not believe there was enough evidence, based on his clinical trials, to show that that it would provide any significant relief for those of us suffering from this terrible disease. He feared then that there were monetary forces moving the the low dose treatments forward in the USA.

Wishing you all well.

MsL