I was working for a year and a half with RSD before it spread and got worse and I had to be taken off. I'm ready to go back now...but work won't let me...so I am not quite sure how this will affect me once I am able to go back. However...it was fairly normal for me to be able to work on 3-4 hours of sleep before and I assume I will be able to do the same. I have been trying to "simulate" activities like if I was going to work. Things like getting up at a certain time, going through my morning pain management routine, getting to a certain place at a time I set for myself (like the grocery store or lately the forest preserve) and then walking for a couple of hours, then coming home and trying to do some activites around the house to simulate other work activities...things like cleaning, doing the dishes, and certain physical therapy exercises. As soon as I find a new job and go back to work I feel pretty confident that I will be able to function okay. It would be nice to get more sleep and feel more rested of course...but I feel the bigger struggle for me will be pushing through the pain on the bad days. Of course...my case might be a little different because with working in retail I always worked crazy hours...it wasn't uncommon for me to work 50-60 hours a week. So I guess I was always able to function on little sleep when the occassion called for it. Makes me wish that I had taken advantage of being able to get a full night's sleep when I could.

Anyway...I think (and this will sounds pretty bad) that once something like this becomes the "norm" you learn to deal with it and function despite it...if you can. I don't mean to minimize the effects RSD has on people...we cannot all go back to work and everyone has to learn to cope with things in their own way. Every day I really have to push myself to get up and go through all the motions...it would be so easy to just say the pain is too bad and give up...but I keep fighting. My boyfriend says it's a good things I am so stubborn. So I don't mean to say that it's easy to deal with...but it helps me a lot to approach it like I do. When I find it's a particularly bad day and I feel myself wanting to give in, I just keep reminding myself of those horrible days when I couldn't walk or stand or sleep or wear normal clothes or a do a million other things and I know I do NOT want to go back to that...but that's what will happen if I let the RSD win. Some days I have to take it easier than others...but there are compromises I will not let myself make.