Strange disease indeed. My wife who has RSD suffered for years before finding a doctor that was serious about treating her. I hesitate to respond to the OP because I fear others who are really in severe pain may take my wife's experience as something themselves are doomed to emulate. Everyone with this conditions suffers differently for sure. And there is no doubt the condition changes and moves and feels different overtime.
My wife's doctor stopped seeing her because she wanted nothing to do with those who are on medicare, although I was paying out of pocket for the visits, medicare was covering the medicines. Her doc referred my wife to several docs who took medicare but appeared to be the bottom of the barrel. They treated my wife as though she was a drug seeker, pushing SCS and charging several hundred to medicare for a sales pitch and to a patient who stated from the start "No invasive treatments".

Long story short my wife no longer is under a doctor's care. She stopped all medicines and suffers on her own. She made it clear to me that all those strong narcotics never really controlled the pain anyway. She suffers everyday hour of the day but in reality she seems to be in the same amount of pain as when she was on 2 60mil Oxys + several vicodins a day.

PhyllisJ, keep in mind, my wife suffered with no meds for years until she could not take it any longer, found a doc who treated her for 5 years and now is seeing no one and seems to be in the same amount of pain when she was taking meds. But I will add her pain level did decrease when she first started her meds, no doubt about it, it just seems she has been able to maintain a certain amount of tolerance perhaps. Very hard to explain.