Hi Pete

I had never heard anyone call it hot and cold RSD but I guess I have both. I can't stand the heat and humidity it causes me to feel so bad and when thunder storms are near, my hand and arm burns terrible. But when driving a AC vent blowing close to my hand sets me on fire. My first discription of how my hand burned to a Dr. was If you stick your hand into a cooler and fish around to find the last drink and your hand get so cold it burns then mutiply that by 10 was how bad the pain was. I was lucky my surgeon knew about RSD and recognized it. Also the WC case nurse new about rsd and and we saw 5 Dr. everone that wc sent me to said I had RSD so wc didn't have a problem treating it.

My hand temp. runs from 3 deg. hotter to 3 deg. colder than my other hand. I have a friend that has a thermal image camera that he uses for his busniess and he has helped me document my temp changes.

On Massages I believe that it is a big help but my therapist rarely massages my affected hand and arm. I believe that the help comes from stress relief on rare ocasions I will ask her to do a little on my hand but she has a way off working it that causes me the least amount of pain. I usually pay for it latter with a flair up but I have almost no movement in my fingers so sometimes I feel that it has to be done. Woody