My husband has had RSD since 1985. Much depends on the location and cause of the chronic pain. RSD is neurological and degenerative. There are pain centers that can try teaching neurofeedback and other ways to deal with pain, but for my husband’s syndrome that wasn’t enough; RSD is about as severe as pain gets.

He has an implanted spinal cord stimulator that helps some; it helped more some years back, but his condition is considered quite advanced at this point. He still feels that it helps to an extent. He also has an implanted morphine pump that helps a great deal more, probably reducing his pain about 50% which still leaves him in a level of pain that most of us would not be able to deal with — he’s just been dealing with this for so long that he manages better than might be expected.

He takes very few oral medications because the pump works pretty well. His quality of life improved greatly with the pump because he has none of the sedation effects that you get with oral meds (pumps actually require much less medication).

Injections never did much for him; they were just a hoop he had to go through before insurance would approve the stimulator and pump. He hated patches and oral meds because he was took sedated for the little benefit he received.

The hardest part has been finding a truly competent pain doctor who wasn’t just a pill pusher. It literally took decades. I do think the medical field has improved in the last ten years in what is available, but finding the specialists who really know what they are doing is not easy.