My RSD is in both legs, and it has spread to both arms/hands as of last year. My legs were diagnosed almost 3 years too late, so the RSD is pretty bad there.

I love yoga pants. They are great, smooth and comfy. I wear wide wool socks at night, otherwise my feet and legs won't get warm at all, and I sleep under a very light double duvet that is especially warm, it's a winterduvet. Very warm for my legs, but too warm for the rest of my body especially if I have to stay in bed longer (because I'm too tired or hurt too much)

To be able to go outside, I have a few seventies-style lycra/elastine (soft) jeans with huge flares and a few big size black dress pants that are so wide in the pant legs they seem like skirts. Awful clothes!

I really do hate the clothes! I used to be very trendy, used to dress in tight pants, jeans and shorter skirts. I kept things very youthful and I had a thing for shoes. I was a lot like the character that Jessica Parker played in Sex and the City. Always on the go, getting things done, working hard.

Nowadays I too have to watch out for the swelling and wear more of a wide type shoe, or shoes a size to a few sizes bigger. I even have men's shoes/sneakers for when it gets really bad. Mostly I wear slippers that are comfy and that don't enclose my feet (hurts like hell). My feet are pure pain, I don't feel much else there. I can't even fully feel that my feet are flesh and blood, it's all pain, and it makes it difficult to put the feet down and take steps - seems as if all I feel is my heel (I have to think where and how I set my feet down while taking steps). My knees too are bad, and I regularly have flare-ups especially if I overdo things (purple-ish/mottled skin that starts to gradually spread throughout the limb from the knees)

I have RSD for almost 14 years, and I am on Buprenorphine pain patches (70 µg) & oral Buprenorphine for breakthrough pain and take Neurontin as well (2700mg a day). This is what works best for me, and I have been on this medication since September 2004. Before that it was Tramadol (which only just took the edge off the pain).

Neurontin has done lots, in the sense that I felt that clothes were no longer my enemy. I still have to watch what I'm wearing (can't wear tight clothes) but it has helped hugely, also with the ice cold sensation and with the pain.

I too struggle with function loss daily. I still don't quite know how to process it. RSD has taken my life away. I am a totally different person now, and against my will... that's the toughest part!