Thank you, thank you, thank you again for your encouragement ... what is SO interesting to me on this website is that I get responses and those of us who have had RSD get the same reaction from the health care professionals ... this is really strange BUT ... believe it or not ... I went through something similar with my cat a few years ago! The conditions aren't related at all but NO vet would listen to me ... I even called several universities, animal shelters, veterinarian schools, etc etc and got the brush off. Just for fun, you can see my cat at the following website:

http://www.tffelines.com/tessstory.html

Well I'm getting off the subject ... I saw two pain management doctors 3 weeks ago ... a referral from a neurosurgeon I was sent to ... they put me on the 300mg per day neurontin ... the one anesthesiologist ... spelling? ... was open to my suggestion that it was RSD but he brought the pain management doctor in and told him what I was thinking ... that I have RSD in my lower mouth ... and that doctor sort of put a lid on my suggestion about RSD ... again, I was shut down ... but again thank you for letting me know that this is not uncommon ...

Anyway, the pain management doctors said I didn't have to come back ... huh? So that's when I went to another neurologist and at least he was willing to discuss my MRI and ordered more blood work ...

This new neurosurgeon ... who acts like he doesn't even know what RSD is ... oh please! ... gave me a script for 300 mg 3 times a day and told me I could adjust my dosage up if I felt the 100 mg 3 times a day isn't helping me ...

I did have slight improvement with the 300mg per day but next week I'm going to up it to 600 mg a day ... actually I was happy with the slight improvement at this point ... still have difficulty chewing but not as bad ...

I have one VERY VERY BIG thing in my favor ... my sister ... a physical therapist ... diagnosed me in 2003 with RSD in my elbow ... after I had broken my elbow ... had two surgeries .. she told me back then that she hopes I don't have it appear anywhere else because she has been in conflict with doctors for 35 years about RSD ... they talk to HER as if she is nuts in the head ... she has treated about 5 people with RSD in 35 years ...

What is really scary to me is that these doctors have no idea whatsoever about what a horrible situation you are in when you have an exacerbation of RSD ... when I first broke my arm in 2003 I went to a physical therapist who was trying to force my arm into who knows what position and I was SCREAMING and she kept pushing and was saying that I was getting myself UPSET ... like I was a nut case ... so I called my sister and she, knowing me and how stoic I am ... knew something unusual was going on ... and so she became my physical therapist and it took her months to get my arm moving ... she got it to about 95% movement ... and of course diagnosed the RSD.

Talk to you later! And I definnitely won't give up ... I'll take my meds and go back to the new neurologist in 6 months ... he said he'd see me twice a year ... but will still keep plugging away about this ... I'll just touch base with him twice a year because I will at least have him around to monitor my meds ...

By the way, in the years since I had my cat treated for the tritrichomonas foetus, when I take my cat to the vet once a year, the vet NEVER even mentions the condition that Tess had ... sound familiar?

What I see, as you have, as soon as you challenge them, they get angry and they want nothing to do with you. So on and forward. And at least I have my sister's support and the support of this website! So I am one lucky RSD person!