Kevscar

I am sorry, you sound angry and frustrated and if i have made that worse then i didnt mean to. I dont think you intended me to be the focus of your anger but if you do then I wont continue to post on your thread.

To be clear, I didn't say I agreed with the UK guidelines or that I thought they were good. However, the unfortunate problem is that they have been introduced in the UK, warts, errors and all. I mentioned it because i have no idea what other rehab and treatment options you have had - i dont know anything about your history so it was only a suggestion in case it helped in some way for you to find treatment options that are more realistic in the UK. I also don't disagree with you that the UK is many, many years behind other countries in its understanding and treatment of CRPS.

Patrick Dielissen's study from 1995 expressly concluded that for patients with severe chronic RSD, amputations should not be performed because of pain alone. That is what I said in my post.

Ms McCabe is a only nurse specialist who did a phd so there would be no point in contacting her regarding the kind of intervention you were hoping for. Her research areas are largely focused on the likes of sensory issues, mirror therapy, perpetuation of pain in CRPS and the likes. The team at Bath are strongly against surgical intervention for CRPS. Their focus is almost exclusively on pain management and functional rehab using motor imagery, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology and other fairly conservative forms of functional rehabilitation. I think their claim to be a specialist centre is laughable and that is from my direct, first hand experience, not other people's views.

Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence from a few people posting on the Internet who say they are happy with something isn't going to be enough to influence the medical profession in the UK to give you the treatment option you'd like. We live in a world where evidence based medicine is the only acceptable kind. That evidence base has to come up to certain standards too.

There are many medical treatments given in the US that are not provided in the UK, largely because their system relies on payment at the point of treatment. This results in very different protocols for medical procedures. It often seems frustrating but it is often impossible to persuade clinicians here that they way they do things in the USA is either necessary or financially viable in the UK. Again, frustrating when you have CRPS and want to try things that are not available here but something you are likely to have to come to accept and make peace with unless you can afford to travel and pay yourself. I've had to go through that process of coming to terms with the limited options here and it's not easy.