FMichael

The comment you quoted was supposed to be faintly humerous, not to be taken as seriously as you did. I am quite sure that if it is possible to get the drug infusions you mentioned in the short timescales needed then it is worth RichS taking advice on that from his physicians.

I can't make any comment on the abstract you were kind enough to post - only to caution that it was a study done in patients with specific fracture types (which RichS doesnt have) rather than general CRPS patients. It is just a personal 'rule' but I never accept an abstract at face value - it's essential to see the whole study write up to check the quality of the methodology and other details that are not included in the abstract. More often than i'd like, I've found abstracts to be rather misleading once I've reviewed the write-up of a full paper. If you have had the opportunity to have already read the whole paper then, of course, you have an advantage over me in that regard.

All I was trying to get across here is that RichS has only just had major spinal surgery and has developed symptoms that flow down the path of a major nerve. This doesn't fit the normal initiation of CRPS since, from his account, there is no trauma to a peripheral limb with initially localised symptoms. If the nerve problems are stemming from a problem with that spinal surgery, it is essential to get that thoroughly checked out because of the risk of further, even more serious problems. Ignoring that and focusing only on a diagnosis of CRPS could result in missing a more serious future problem. I'm not suggesting for a minute that treatment options for CRPS should not be pursued, only that both possibilities should be looked at in tandem.

Hope that clarifies. I don't think we are in disagreement.