Hi. Out of curiousity, how long had your boyfriend had RSD when he received ketamine treatment? And what was the nature of his treatment? (An in-patient 5-day low dose infusion, 10-days of out-patient 4 hour infusions, etc.)

The reason I ask is because it's been observed for sometime now that - as with many treatments - the sooner you start it after developing symptoms of RSD/CRPS the better off you will fare. Hence the six month window SnowWhyte referred to above.

The big exception - at least in the first double-blind, controlled study of ANY ketamine treatment for RSD - was in the 10 day outpatient treatments, in which both people with fresh cases of RSD and those who had it for years, significantly outperformed the placebo group in a number of respects:

In this randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study of primarily severe longstanding CRPS patients treated with a low dose multi-day infusion of ketamine, statistically significant reduction of pain (p < 0.05) was demonstrated in the ketamine treated group on: (1) the short form McGill pain questionnaire for the 3 month length of the study following treatment; (2) in several of the parameters evaluated in the pain questionnaire (pain in the most affected area, burning pain, pain when touched or brushed lightly and overall pain level; (3) data from the activity watch demonstrated fewer nighttime awakenings as well as lower daytime pain scores (only measured for 2 weeks following the last infusion); and (4) spontaneous burning pain decreased (p < 0.05) for 1 month. The subjects in the placebo group demonstrated no significant improvement between pre- and post-treatment values in any of these parameters. The changes in the other parameters queried: (1) overall pain; (2) deep muscle pain; (3) joint pain; (4) quantitative sensory testing; and (5) quality of life issues did not reach statistical significance (p > 0.05), however they trended toward improvement in the ketamine group and remained unchanged in the placebo group.

Outpatient intravenous ketamine for the treatment of complex regional pain, syndrome: A double-blind placebo controlled study, Schwartzman RJ, Alexander GM, Grothusen JR, Paylor T, Reichenberger E, Perreault M, Pain 2009 Dec 15;147(1-3):107-15. Epub 2009 Sep 23, ONLINE FULL TEXT @ http://www.rsds.org/2/library/articl...n_Pain2009.pdf

Mike