By way of follow-up, my comments should not be taken as myopically focused on CRPS as opposed to the general health and safety of chronic pain patients as a whole. As noted by Walton, et al, "low frequency thalamic bursts have been recorded from NPP [neuropathic pain] patients." Pain 2010 at p. 10 of Epub, citing, Jeanmonod D, Magnin M, Morel A. Low-threshold calcium spike bursts in the human thalamus. Common physiopathology for sensory, motor and limbic positive symptoms. Brain 1996;119:363–75, FULL TEXT @ http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/.../119/2/363.pdf.

If there is a bigger problem, it's that the medical culture as a whole has to "unlearn" the difficult lesson of a generation ago, that their interventions all too often made the patients worse off than when treatment was initiated, whereby an ethos developed that while it might take years, it was important for the patients to cool their jets, stop running around looking for cures and becoming focused on acceptance. While that might have come from a place of good intention, it's my personal suspicion that an unintended consequence that the profession as a whole lost interest scientific interest in the topic, from the people at the NIH who don’t as a rule write grants for pain studies, to a neuropsychologist who ostensibly finished testing me a month ago (no word yet on when a report will be ready) but REALLY didn't want to be responsible for understanding the article by Lubin et al - I am told Rodolfo R. Llinás is widely regarding as one of the foremost neuroscientists in the world - to the point that she would not read it unless I agreed to reimburse her for 100% of her time: "there is no insurance code for researching a patient's condition."

Imagine the fun if she now has to look at every patient presenting with a neuropathic pain condition as having a possible thalamocortical dysrhythmia. (Suspect that’s when she has to decide whether she’s a PhD with a clinical subspecialty or - in the words of one of my docs - a high end tech.)

Mike