I'm glad you can manage without meds and wish I were in your shoes to do so!! Regarding it being difficult to tell the difference between symptoms and side effects.. well at least for me any side effects have been primarily; headaches, nausea, fogginess, sleepy, and dry mouth and agitation from some. The pain of CRPS for me, is the feeling that my muscles are being cut or torn down my thigh, like two hot wires are being touched together from my groin to just below my knee's, random extremely painful lightening bolt pain throughout my legs and never ending burning.. my right leg has been swollen since the day I awoke on the recovery table, it is cold and blue even though it burns and even the slightest cool air to hit my leg causes the hot wire pain to get substantially worse as does the swelling. The skin is so sensitive to the touch that I can't even lightly brush a piece of lint off my thighs etc., and these pains are constant every second of everyday .. So YES, I can tell the difference between the side effects and the pain of CRPS. I am still battling the shame I feel for relying on them - if I didn't I would need a padded room!

No one medication takes the pain away and in fact many of them don't do much to dent the actual CRPS pain. Some allow me to sleep a little longer and others allow me to enjoy intimacy or do a couple of chores, do my PT etc., without being in tears doing it. Sometimes the tears still come.. but not everyday like before.

Some of the side effects go away after our bodies get used to this new medication and very slow increases also prevent the side effects from popping up again due to the increase. Some side effects like dry mouth is annoying but the benefit of the medication might make it worth it to continue using it. Obviously that is individual and thankfully with that particular side effect there are remedies. For me, I will try a new medication only if there are 2 goals of the medication, and if any side effects subside given enough time or through dose adjustments. Like with the Butrans patch.. I vomited daily for over a week and then that finally went away, now I don't have a single side effect from it and it does two things: reduces pain intensity and it allows me to do more which in turn elevates my overall mood. When I tried Lyrica I was so agitated and suicidal this was not a good one for me.. very scary.

So glad you don't require so much and I hope this continues for a very long time!

Just like the symptoms of CRPS are different for everyone our medication choices and tolerance are all also very unique and it takes a ton of patience and trial and error to get a good combo in place.