Hi everyone,

I won't go into too much background detail but I have had CRPS for 18 months now, it started in my left arm and spread to my right leg a couple of months later.

So basically up until now I had only had physiotherapy and medication. I saw my pain consultant last week who is booking me in for a stellate ganglion block ASAP (my arm is worst affected to we are starting there). He also prescribe me carbamazepine (tegretol). Now Ive been on this a week and its making my sleep even worse than it was before, and every time I wake I'm feeling sick. I am also feeling really groggy throughout the day and very forgetful. Im only on 100mg at night. Ive tried so many drugs, amitriptyline, nortriptyline, duloxetine, gabapentin, pregabalin, topiramate, even fluoxetine. None of these I have been able to tolerate at a dose high enough to help my pain. I take amitriptyline at 10mg purely because it does help me sleep a little better but that is it. some of these drugs I have even given 2 or 3 trials with no success.

I generally have a problem tolerating medication, not just these types of drugs. I always struggle with antibiotics and I have adverse reactions to opiates so that puts me in a very difficult situation for managing my CRPS. Since the beginning of May I have been off all the meds apart from the 10mg amitriptyline and Ive never felt better in myself. Its so nice to not wake up horrendously groggy and actually be able to think straight and not feel sick all the time, the pain is still there but it was there when I was on the meds anyway.

Anyway I was just wondering if anyone here has been in a similar situation to me? I will give the carbamazepine the 28 day trial (thats the amount I was given) but if it doesn't help I am seriously considering asking my consultant if we can just drop the oral meds route because its really not helping me.