Artist -- it was so good to hear/read your comments in response to me.

I did have an injury -- a true bonfire physical injury (like your arm), but mine was in my lower back: went through tons of PT, chiropractor, prolotherapy, acupuncture, etc, etc -- including surgeries. And the initial injury was the onset of RSD....

BUT at the time there is no way I could deny that I was under a great deal of personal stress (in the middle of a messy divorce + going through a stressful corporate acquisition with my former employer). I was very, I mean very, stressed: to the point of having panic attacks -- I had never had panic attacks ever in my life prior, and have never since...

BUT doing the exact timeframe of the injury (a couple months prior and a couple months after) I was in this severe stressed-out period. I am absolutely convinced that it is too much have been a coincidence: unbeknownst me I had my sympathetic system so stressed out, on overdrive, that I do believe my body just simply could not properly heal from the injury. End result: excessive permanent inflammation of the peripheral nerve fibers: persistent "Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy".

I know the 'were you under stress at time of injury' was one of the questions on the RSDSA/NIH online info. gathering questionnaire they were taking 1-2 yrs. ago, but I haven't read anything about what they have been able to access from the results of that questionnaire (actually, the results from all the questions they asked on it).

Essentially, I wonder if stress *was* a contributing factor to the initial injury not healing properly, and hence is a contribution to the offset of RSD. And no research I have found (and I've done a good deal of self-research over the years, as I'm sure many others have too) has ever definitively stated one way or the other *if* stress, or not handling stress well, is actually the over-exacerbation of the sympathetic nervous system to begin with (although at that point it is a temporary thing ... unlike RSD)


Re: your story, which you shared with me above, I was sorry to hear about your arm, the offset of RSD, and what you've been through -- I can identify: and I also had bad experience(s) with ice (ouch!) in the beginning of this situation a few years ago.