Hi,

I don't have anything to do with US insurance requirements, I speak just as someone who went through the process of trying to put a name to a condition and a set of symptoms.

The scan itself is not able to diagnose RSD, but in conjunction with RSD symptoms it can be a diagnostic clincher.

Among other things, RSD causes patchy osteoporosis. This is picked up by that type of scan. Certainly after I took the 3-phase bone scan that is what showed up, and that's what got written up. It clinched the diagnosis and I was relieved to have one, there's nothing more mind-numbingly scary than diagnosis limbo.

Where I live, in SE Asia, there are *so* many little old ladies bent into a severe L-shape because of osteoporosis, I see it every day, it's almost epidemic here and it's heart-breaking to witness. It's not a bad thing to be warned about it, in my view. The local population here can't afford scans, they just get progressively more bent out of shape.

Women, in particular, are prone to this after the menopause. But RSD or no, for anyone, osteopenia (precurser to osteoporosis) and osteoporosis itself are conditions to take seriously.

As Lil says, it at least gives you some warning that you should protect the affected areas, because it takes almost nothing to break brittle bones.

all the best