I can't believe I just noticed this thread!! my brain has turned to mush... a friend just gave me the article reprint a week or two ago. (I'll admit I was afraid to see what Dr Oaklander had written in response to my letter so I had avoided looking it up on the web)
Now I can say that I thought her response was pretty lame, and your posts on this thread have strengthened my sense that she was reeeeeeally groping for justification. In particular, Vicc, artist, and HubbywithRSD's posts capture much more eloquently and powerfully what I really wanted to say in my Letter to the Editor (but couldn't for space reasons).
She is particularly dangerous because she receives a large grant from NIH to implement Congress' Decade of Pain Control and Research. $1.5 million was dedicated to CRPS research led by the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Oaklander's nerve damage study has been funded by the NINDS.
I wrote that Letter because I knew that if my friend with RSD read Oaklander's article, it would have made her acutely suicidal. Don't doctors know that shrugging off the intense severity of advanced RSD is enough to cause their patients to kill themselves? How close they are to suicide every single day? I wrote that Letter because I was so angry at the irresponsibility of that article, that so much federal government research money goes to physicians who distort previous research to support their own anti-patient stance. Oaklander's response to my Letter, which my friend read before I did, cast my friend into another fit of despair and self-doubt... "maybe I really don't have RSD... maybe it's this neuropathy thing after all... maybe it's all in my head."
My friend has had RSD for 21 years, and is now stage IV. I think she is the RSD expert, not a clueless physician.
I have sat on grant review panels for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and as a research reviewer, and a "pain services consumer" it is greatly distressing that a blatantly distortionist stance receives leadership recognition. I appreciate the validation from folks who have posted here.
I'm also glad I could help give voice on behalf of people with RSD.