This is really a tough question, everyone is different and pain is highly individualized, but a pain medication is considered successful if it results in a 40-60% reduction in pain levels. The object is never to remove all pain, it is to restore some quality of life, so you can think about something other than the pain and get some sleep.
My medication relieves most of the burning and reduces the muscle pain in my legs to a fraction of what it would be without meds, but I still have numbness, pins and needles in legs, hands and arms, a feeling of constriction in my feet and ankles like they are wrapped in a tight bandage, feelings of things running up and down my legs, and a variable amount of burning. These are constants. Then there is breakthrough pain when the nerve pain in my legs just becomes hard to take despite the long-acting meds. Many of us are never really comfortable, but it should be possible to find significant relief.

Thanks Susanne. Not what I was hoping for but realistic I guess. I am in awe of u guys, u all seem so calm and accepting and it seems like u go on with life just fine. I am a wreck. I can't figure out hOw to live. I am 1000% consumed. Scared and just can not cope. I cry all day every day.

Hi Canagirl,
I know exactly how you feel. I have SFN from head to toe, I've had it for 3.5 years now. I am in pain all day everyday, but I've learned to live with it. Some of the things that help me are pain meds, gabapentin, and also I keep searching for pain managment clinics, I will keep going and trying new things until I find the thing that works best for me. I have also joined a chronic pain support group in my area. It has helped me so much. It's not an online group, I physically go there. I am raising my 4 and 5 year old grandchildren and sometimes get scared if I will be able to continue to raise them, that fear just brings on more stress and worsens my symptoms, so I just take one day at a time, trusting The Lord that he will get me through, and he does. The pain of this disease is almost
Unbearable, I understand completely, but you are not alone and you will get through it. Please know The Lord is with
You and all of us are here for you. Also something that helps me, is a website called Restministries. Its an online chronic pain support group...but the support group that helps me the most is the one I go to every Friday. Try to find one you can go to, to meet others who are going through what you are facing, I promise it will help you. Praying for you. Jan