fmichael~
Thank you for your response! I know I'm not depressed, and will very much so hate to go that rout, but if that is the only thing I can do then so be it. I have called a hospital in Portland that is connected to a school, and "prides" itself with doing research. So we will see were I get with that.
What department did you talk to? I called the ECT unit at the Portland hospital, but I'm not sure if I should also call the neuro department. Do you have any suggestions?

Dear GJmom -

Assume we're talking about Portland Health Sciences (OH & SU). The department in question would be psychiatry, and what you would want to find out is whether there is an ECT coordinator (maybe an RN) who could tell you whether anyone there is working with RUL ECT as a treatment for chronic pain. That said, I just checked out its webpage for clinical trials and didn't see anything relevant, searching under both pain and RSD (http://www.ohsu.edu/research/rda/so/index.php) but that may not mean anything.

Alternatively, I have an uncle who is a relatively recently retired psychiatrist from a teaching hospital in Seattle. I don't know of he's in the country right now, but I will attempt to reach him on Sunday, on the assumption that he must know more than a few psychiatrists in Portland. Should I get a name, I will send you a PM.

Mike

Just wanted to let you all know that I talked to my PM about this. He was open to it & gave me the number of the psychiatric unit at a teaching hospital. He said, by definition, all people with RSD are depressed. No offense, GJmom. I think it's his way of saying that we should be able to get it. Maybe, away around the insurance. Glad he is in support of it. He went into detail decribing ECT to me.

Janism, I am so happy for you.

Linmarie

fmichael~
OH & SU is the one I called. I also did not see anything on the web page, but figured I'd give it a shot. I have also called some hospitals in Seattle, Salt Lake, I have one in Florida that I will call on monday. Thank you so much for all of the info! You are the best!!!!

Linmarie~
No offense taken at all.

Third treatment was Monday AM and uneventful. Am walking around without assistance now and even had lunch today with one of my friends from another forum. How nice to be able to put a face with a name!

It's really nice to hear that ECT is making such an apparent improvement for you. Thanks for keeping us posted.

Mike

Thanks Mike!

It was really wonderful to go to lunch and leave my cane in the car!

Fourth treatment was today and only side effect I'm having is sleepiness from the sedative. Looks likely that I will only need a total of 6 treatments so we're scheduling two more for next week (Wed and Fri) and then going to see whether any more are needed or not. Acid test will be this weekend when a huge weather front moves in as that has always crippled me with pain in the past ...