Hi Joan,

Most insurance companies will not pay for HBO to treat RSD; worse, any hospital that uses HBO to treat RSD or almost any other disorder will lost all Medicare and Medicaid funding. This means that it will not pay for any MC or MA patient in that hospital.

The reason for this is that the FDA has ruled that ALL diseases must be treated with drugs or surgery. The pharmaceutical industry owns the FDA, and they can't make money off of HBO, so the FDA says that hospitals can only use HBO to treat a very tiny number of diseases. I think it is only 8 or 9.

IRI is on that very short list: RSD is not.

It gets worse. According to the FDA, advertising anything as a preventative, or treatment that is not a drug, is a violation of the law.

If a grocery store were to publish an ad for oranges and say in that ad that oranges can prevent and/or treat scurvy (and, of course, they can), the FDA can come in and confiscate all of the oranges in that store as illegal. They are being sold as medicine, but they are not a drug.

I hope you will look up Buckwheat's thread Vascular Issues; It does answer some of the questions you asked. I'm not going to discuss HBO right now because I really feel it needs to be addressed in a thread of its own...Vic

Hello,

I think some how our wires are crossed because I didn't use the word somatic in my post
I know the word somatic and it's definition but I was talking only of the psychiatric illness called Somatisation which was mentioned in Allen's post.
Somatisations is an illness in which people present with symptoms with no identifiable cause-----There have been many patients with RSD/CRPS whom have been wrongly diagnosed with Somatisation simply because they have some of the symptoms but not the signs of RSD/CRPS that some doctors use as a diagnosis.
Hope that clears things up.
Cheers Tayla

Hi to Joan,


Whilst RSD/CRPS is not one of the illnesses that are nominated for by Medicare here in Australia there are ways around it-----That is why I have had treatment.
The list here is:-
Radiation Injury
Necrotising soft tissue infections
Non- healing diabetic wounds
Gas Gangrene
Decompression Illness (the bends)
Air Embolism
Carbon Monoxide poisoning
Crush Injuries
Traumatic Ischaemias
Compromised flaps and grafts
Osteomyelitis
Thermal Burns

Fortunately there are recommendations now that it maybe useful in diseases such as Chronic Pain condition, MS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and thus pressure is being put on our medicare to widen the criteria for use of HBOT.


The chances of being accepted for HBOT are increased if there is proven damage to tissue due to vasoconstriction (ulcers etc). That is how I qualified as I had a measurement done of the oxygen level in my skin which was preventing wound healing, it was low and they said yes!
As the constriction and dilatation of our blood vessels is controlled by our autonomic nervous system and as this is usually affected with CRPS, it would seem that there maybe many people who could meet the criteria this way.
Let's hope that soon our disease will be accepted and we will not have to try and get through the back door

Take care
Tayla

This is the first of a series of posts discussing the information found in Allen’s post on page 4. It is a long post and it presents a lot of opportunities to discuss the contrasts between nerve injury and IRI as the cause of RSD. I hope these posts help people sort out facts from fiction about RSD.

The underlying causes of the syndrome have yet to be defined, and no definitive diagnostic test exists even though CRPS was first described in the late 19th century by the neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell. Mitchell referred to the cluster of symptoms he noticed in some of the Civil War soldiers who were under his care as "causalgia."1 The soldiers persistently complained of severe, burning pain long after their wounds had healed.2 They also experienced swelling, redness, and temperature fluctuations at the injured site, typically a limb.

no definitive diagnostic test exists. Neurologists are experts at designing tests that diagnose neurological disorders, but they can’t find any way to diagnose any neurological dysfunction in RSD; perhaps because the neurological dysfunctions in this disease are the result, NOT the cause of RSD,

The IASP further divides CRPS into CRPS I, in which major nerve damage is not present, and CRPS II, in which major nerve damage is present. [Emphasis added]. The vast majority of RSD patients are diagnosed with CRPS-I, in which no nerve injury is present, yet every RSD “expert” who writes about this disease continues to explain RSD/CRPS-I as the result of a nerve injury they admit isn’t there.

If there is no nerve injury in CRPS-I, what causes it?

"You diagnose CRPS I only when there is no medical explanation for the symptoms," said Jose Ochoa, MD… In his view, it means that the clinician simply has failed to diagnose the true cause of pain-whether it be nerve injury, arthritis, phlebitis, hysteria, or malingering.

Ochoa is a former RSD “expert” who once argued that this disease is caused by damage to sympathetic nerves. He eventually realized that this is not a neurological disorder, but instead of looking for the actual cause, he decided he could make more money by becoming an insurance empire expert and testify that RSD patients are either malingering or mentally ill.

He uses his knowledge that this isn’t a neurological disorder to blow RSD “experts” out of the water by asking questions like: “You say this is a neurological disorder, but can you provide any evidence at all that it is?” The RSD “expert” is forced to admit that he/she has absolutely no evidence at all. The RSD patient loses because the RSD “expert” can’t even prove RSD/CRPS-I even exists.

The fact that cyanosis isn’t mentioned in any diagnostic criteria of RSD means that the patient can’t even point at her/his purple skin and say “Of course it exists. Look at my arm”; the insurance empire lawyer can simply reply “Cyanosis isn’t mentioned in the RSD literature, so whatever is turning your arm purple can’t be part of RSD”. The patient/victim loses the case.

My next post on Allen’s post will talk about diagnostic criteria…Vic

Vicc, I appreciate that you may just choose to ignore this and I respect your choice if you, do but in your post you said---

The fact that cyanosis isn’t mentioned in any diagnostic criteria of RSD means that the patient can’t even point at her/his purple skin and say “Of course it exists. Look at my arm”; the insurance empire lawyer can simply reply “Cyanosis isn’t mentioned in the RSD literature, so whatever is turning your arm purple can’t be part of RSD”. The patient/victim loses the case.
~~~~~
My question is-
Where is cyanosis denied as a possible sign of RSD/CRPS? Who is denying that many people (but not all) with RSD/CRPS have cyanosis?
Every description of possible signs and symptoms I can find mentions cyanotic looking skin (which of course we all know does not necessarily mean there is tissue damage)
Every one of the multitude of "insurance empire lawyers" I have had dealings with have never bothered to query my case citing that cyanosis isn't mentioned in RSD literature so therefore saying I don't have it!!

I would call myself somewhat of a chameleon as all of my RSD area have transient colour changes, cyanotic colouring being just one of them.
If I was to believe that the cyanotic colouring was an IRI then that would infer that I have had a period of ischaemia and the tissue has been damaged when the blood flow was returned to it.
Vicc, can you please explain why the areas of spread of my RSD that have transient cyanotic appearance have never had an ischaemia caused by a tourniquet or anything else.
I have had however, many periods of autonomic nervous system related vasoconstriction that lead to severe cyanosis but because this is transient then I have to believe there is no IRI.
I do have severe trophic changes to much of my skin, it is shiny, warm and oedematous in places and atrophied in others-----does this mean that my diagnosis of RSD is incorrect?

I have never been met with the sceptisism that you describe, perhaps I am just a lucky one but the "experts" here (the ones I have come in contact with over the years) seem aware that RSD/CRPS is indeed a variable with no two patients necessarily having the same signs and symptoms or aetiology.

I have said before that I know there is NO proof of the cause of this disease and without re posting all the previous abstracts and opinions from those doctors and scientists who do spend time researching this disease, the overwhelming opinion is that it is neurologically based----this being different to saying that there is a particular nerve injury in RSD/CRPS TYPE 1.
Vicc, I am more than happy to be swayed by an opinion or a hypothesis if I can see how and why it makes sense to me but with the huge variability between RSD patients, I just need a reason to believe that our cyanotic tendancies are anything but a sign of our very "confused" autonomic nervous system but at the same time agreeing that there maybe some people that have RSD that has been caused by an IRI.
Sincerely
Tayla

Here is the Vascular issues thread link-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ascular+issues

need to repost

I am happy to delete this...Vic

May I ask that this post be closed it seems to be that some must have the last word. I ask mods please close this down enogh is enough and you have the last word.

We all have better things to do there are other post that should get more attention than these. I'm not flamming anyone just asking that if this keeps up I ask the mods just to get rid of these post for good if at all possible.

Peace to you all love in your hearts, we all suffer why would we want stress on anyone, stress is the worst thing for CRPS/RSD.

Yes, it feels it's time to close this thread.

Thanks,

KD