"You look fine...." Such words are usually intended as a compliment. Sometimes they provide reassurance. But they can also produce confused feelings when someone is silently suffering. This problem is not unique to CRPS. Parallels are easily drawn with other conditions with controversial diagnoses and uncertain cause, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, posttraumatic stress disorder, and premenstrual syndrome. These disorders can be considered "invisible" disabilities because they are virtually impossible for casual observers to detect.

With fibromyalgia, a syndrome that combines pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression, you have to separate “cause” from “trigger.” New research suggests that this mysterious syndrome is caused by imbalances of chemicals and hormones in the nervous system that amplify sensation, making even a slight touch feel painful. In a study published last year, Daniel Clauw, MD, a rheumatologist at the University of Michigan, used MRIs to show what happens in the brains of fibromyalgia patients in response to minimal pressure to their left thumbs – blood rushes to areas involved in pain perception. To get the same response from healthy people Clauw had to apply twice the pressure.

Many people are concerned about how nutrition and the environment affect the immune system; however obtaining usable information on how they interact is difficult at best. We have adopted an integrated approach that allows for each of these areas to be objectively assessed.