You could be absolutely correct. I've heard this many many times. My wife was stressed a couple of times during her broken wrist nightmare. For one she is shy, we were out of town visiting my family, she worked at a very stressful Benefit division for a large business. When she broke her arm, she had it set at a hospital in NJ. They wanted her to stay the night, she refused. They warned her her arm may not be set correctly and wanted to make sure it was. She decided to wait and have it looked at in DC. One month later she had to have the wrist rebroke and set. She made another bad decision by refusing to be admitted into the hospital, sedated for the arm to be reset. She wanted the arm redone in the docs office using local anesthetic. And the nightmare really started. She never liked doctors, hospitals of any sort and has been extremely difficult for her to then have to deal with multible doctors etc. Very stressful for her.

I understood that you were speculating :) I have heard that theory many times before too.

My pm dr didn't want to manipulate my wrist and fingers after it was set wrong the first time. He was afraid the rsd might spread. My orthopedic dr agreed. I was given nerveblocks, pt and prednisone instead, but I still can't bend my wrist and I can only bend and straighten my fingers half way. They are also twisted to the right and my wrist is lined up crooked, as visible to the naked eye. I couldn't straighten my arm either until I did pt, my elbow was locked. Now I can bend my elbow though. And my shoulder does not allow my arm to bend back all the way.

Here's a read that I received on facebook from the RSDSA. It touches on the subject of this thread. If the read is too long check out the last paragraph.

"Why Does Chronic Pain Hurt Some People More?
Brain Research Reveals New Clues
Brain research reveals new clues about the reasons behind different physical reactions among those who suffer injuries.

By Shirley S. Wang

Why does pain from the same type of injury linger in some people but not others?

Genetics and brain-based biological factors are the latest frontier of research on chronic pain, along with personality traits, coping strategies and life experiences. The question is a riddle researchers have been trying to solve for decades.

*edit*
sorry there is copyright on original article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...wsj_india_main)

This part:
"Dr. Apkarian’s group also looked, in a previous study published last year, at anatomical changes in the brain’s gray matter, which helps control sensory perception, muscles and emotion. That investigation found that chronic pain appeared to reorganize brain structure. They found unusually high levels of communication between two regions, the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens.

“The more they talk to each other, the more likely someone is going to become a chronic pain patient,” Dr. Apkarian says."

I wonder about that. I've always been very sensitive to touch.

My dad does have some issues, he gets seizures. He's currently going through the VA to get benefits for the Agent Orange toxins that he got when in Vietnam.