I've been reading through this thread, and there are so many good comments on a tough subject (and a lot of humor, which I appreciate! Can't let pain win and take away your sense of humor!!!)

I was lucky and my RSD went into remission years ago - I joined here mainly because of my daughter's experiences with RSD - but I still have CFS and fibromyalgia, which produce similar symptoms, although not nearly as extreme. I've battled sleeplessness and sex difficulties for years. Sleep difficulties are pretty much every night sometimes I just want to hit myself over the head with a hammer to get to sleep!!!! Lately, I've found that ocean sounds help just a bit (we moved from California to Arizona 6 years ago and I miss the ocean!!). I have a nature sound app on my ipod, and I bought a good little wireless speaker, and have the sounds play for 2 hours. When I was back east with my daughter for some medical treatments, I finally got her to try it, too (she scoffed at it helping - you know kids sometimes! ) and she found it helped her, too. I'm not talking HUGE help here, but even a little is sometimes enough.

As far as sex - yes, it's a battle with the things mentioned here - that line between pleasure and pain, for example (sometimes the only thing that doesn't hurt on me is my eyebrows!) And it's hard sometimes to not have the "let's just finish it up" attitude. OTOH, my husband needs it more than I do, so we definitely have to handle that with good humor and grace, and he understands that I have to pick and choose times to invest the energy to achieve results. And I try to keep telling him (because men have a hard time understanding this ) that for women, often it's the relationship aspect that is more important!

Anyway, good discussion on a delicate but important topic.