RSDSA Launches Membership Campaign
By James W. Broatch, Executive Director

The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association (RSDSA) has launched an ambitious campaign to double its membership in less than a year. Currently, RSDSA has more than 7,000 members, which is a pitiful number after being in business for 22 years. This year, we want to encourage and enlist more of the 50,000 individuals who visit our website each month to become members. In 2006, we mailed out 2,418 comprehensive information packets to people who called or wrote; but again, most did not choose to join. To me, that's heartbreaking.

By not choosing to join, people with CRPS too often miss vital information about the treatment and management of this intractable syndrome that is contained in the RSDSA Review.

Your membership allows us to work for you.

More important, when you join RSDSA you join a group of committed individuals who want to make a difference. Our members are not content to be victims of CRPS, and they realize that adding their name to our membership roster gives us the additional clout we need when we discuss CRPS with pharmaceutical companies, workers compensation insurance carriers, or federal organizations

"About 7,000 members" is not impressive when we are advocating that a State Department of Health divert funds from another project to conduct a public and medical professional awareness campaign to detect early onset CRPS. Realistically, we cannot make this argument based on CRPS's epidemiological numbers alone because it is still officially classified as a rare disorder (less than 200,000 cases). Significant membership numbers will strengthen our case that this syndrome is more common than believed and merits greater attention from government, insurers, and pharmaceutical corporations.

Why join RSDSA?

•We are the only national organization that actively funds research
•We have a Scientific Advisory Committee comprised of the leaders in clinical and research activities in the U.S.
•We constantly educate physicians, physical therapists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals through exhibits at their national conferences.
•We produce several free publications, including Recognizing, Understanding, and Treating CRPS, Helping Your Child Succeed in School, Treating Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: A Guide to Therapy
•We listen and respond to your needs. Publications, such as In Pain, Out of Work, Can't Pay the Bills, are a direct result of conversations with people like you who call our office with their concerns.

You can't afford not to join

Although our annual membership fee of $15 helps support vital projects, such as our website, we will waive the fee if requested.

I'm asking your help in encouraging all those with CRPS to join RSDSA. If each one of you encourages someone to join, we will achieve our goal and increase our effectiveness as advocates for the CRPS community.

Updated November 28, 2007