Hi,
I see some people call rsd/crps a disease. My neighbor asked her doctor about rsd to see if she could get more info for me and he said that it is not a disease and that is so rare and that alot of dr's mis diagnose it. Syndrome, Disease whats the difference???? Any thoughts????????
Eileen :

Hi Eileen,

(from the Oxford dictionary)
- definition of syndrome is a group of symptoms which consistently occur together.
(Sounds better than "a bunch of symptoms we *can't* put a name to"..)
- definition of disease is a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms.
(Sounds better than "a bunch of symptoms we *can* put a name to"..)

Since all diseases produce a bunch of specific symptoms...

The medical naming seems to depend on whether they can identify an originating cause. Notice how many names RSD/CRPS/Causalgia etc has... but I expect that if tomorrow some Doctor Smith produced definitive research proving that it was caused by eating too many Hershey bars it would instantly become "Smith Syndrome" or "Hershey's Disease".

Doctors shmoctors...I think it's just code for the medics: disease = we know something about it; syndrome = we don't.

Cynical? Moi?
all the best!

LMAO artist!! Too good!! You cynical, never!!! Sounds just like me.

So, no for my humble opinion on the whole thing. I consider it a disorder rather than a disease. I've always equated disease with something like cancer. So I consider this a disorder like fibro and things like that. It just seems to make more sense to me anyway.

Hugs,
Karen

I got curious about the differences so looked them up-
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html

dis·ease
Function: noun
: an impairment of the normal state of the living animal or plant body or one of its parts that interrupts or modifies the performance of the vital functions, is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms, and is a response to environmental factors (as malnutrition, industrial hazards, or climate), to specific infective agents (as worms, bacteria, or viruses), to inherent defects of the organism (as genetic anomalies), or to combinations of these factors : SICKNESS : ILLNESS -- called also morbus -- compare HEALTH 1

syn·drome
Function: noun
: a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality

con·di·tion
Function: noun
: a usually defective state of health <a serious heart condition> b : a state of physical fitness <exercising to get into condition>

we have a neighbor who's a retired professor of medicine and i asked him about this.....is it a disease or a condition or a syndrome......his answer?..."actually, it's a dystrophy".

well, that sure clears things up for me!

A Dystrophy too! Boy now we all should be really confused! LOL

And dystrophy is...

dystrophy

noun
1. any of several hereditary diseases of the muscular system characterized by weakness and wasting of skeletal muscles [syn: muscular dystrophy]
2. any degenerative disorder resulting from inadequate or faulty nutrition