Dear SonshineEvie -

You're new here, and may not appreciate that at the top of every NT page there is a "Search" button, which you should always open at a new tab so as to not loose anything you are working on, etc. Believe me, there is a wealth of information in those posts.

Had you first searched the RSD and CRPS forum under either Mayo Clinic or Joshua Prager, you would have found scores/hundreds(?) of posts, and very few of them are complimentary.

I am a native of Rochester MN, and was able to secure an appointment with their leading peripheral neurologist on RSD/CRPS, who promptly blew me off because - some 8 months into this - I hadn't (yet) displayed enough of the "objective criteria" to confirm a Dx of CRPS, EVEN THOUGH I HAD GONE INTO A 2-WEEK REMISSION FOLLOWING A BILATERAL LSB, ROUGHLY ROUGHLY FIVE MONTHS AFTER DEVELOPING MY SYMPTOMS! (That and she was oblivious to odd developments in the pattern of my body-hair and nail growth.) Little did I know that at that time she was just about to publish a major paper on the incidence of CRPS in a population of 100,000 people (Olmsted Co., MN) based on an historical review of treating records from the Mayo Clinic and the Olmsted County Medical Group: a low-ball estimate that was later pilloried and generally discredited for its overly restrictive diagnostic criteria. That, and at least since the sixties, it has emerged under the influence of one neurologist in particular as a leading hawk against the use of opioids in people with non-malignant chronic pain, to the point that the centerpiece of its pain program is an out-patient program teaching pain patients essentially how to "grin and bear it." Small wonder that the same folks have been tight with the W/C industry and repeatedly testify as expert witnesses for defendants/insurance companies in litigation. And finally, at least in recent years, it hasn't exactly been a font of new research into the cause(s) of CRPS.

Don't get me wrong, I would trust (and have) trusted my life with the Mayo Clinic in so many areas. But pain management - and anesthesiology in general - are not necessarily among them.

And as to Dr. Prager, where I have lived in LA for many years, I saw him along the way as well. There are many things I could say about him, but "legend in his own mind" comes as close as I can to summing it up. Check out the comments on Dr. Prager in particular.

Personally, and I've made no bones about this, I think the best pain doctor in town - bar none - is Steven Richeimer, MD, Chief of Pain Medicine at USC and Director of the USC Pain Center. (A place which not incidentally accepts most medical insurance as payment in full.) Having had the privileged for being treated by a lot of great and caring physicians, Robert M. Schwartzman included, I believe that Dr. Richeimer, with his double residencies in psychiatry and anesthesiology, may well be one of the the finest combinations of technical brilliance, humor, compassion and utter lack of egotism in the medical profession today.

And to the south of LA, I've also heard very good things about Nancy L Sajben MD in La Jolla. If nothing else, her discussion of "Complex Regional Pain" (the link is on the right hand side of her homepage) should be required reading for all. For what it's worth . . .

And with that, welcome to the forum!

Mike