Tips you told us
from your experience of RSD/CRPS

Self-treatment with natural progesterone

This is going to sound really odd, but my CRPS is hormonally related. It gets worse with estrogens. I have self- treated with Natural progesterone and the progesterone does seem to have an effect on the pain making it somewhat less. At least it's something. Since it is the same molecule that is in your body, it's considered a supplement and is available over the counter or from a compounding pharmacy. Since you make more - a whole lot more - progesterone when pregnant, you really don't need to be that concerned over side-effects - unless you did not have good pregnancies and know you don't tolerate progesterone well. I do have a friend like that.

I have taken so much that it has made me drowsy before. I have been amazed that it has some effect - and I'll take all the help I can get! I think it's interesting that progesterone has also been shown to help memory and help build up bone in people with osteoporosis, where the exact opposite is true for CRPS. And it's a lotion, not another pill to take.

I wish someone would study progesterone (not progestin). There was a report on the pub-med site about a women's pain-threshold is higher in the follicular phase than the luteal. Women who have menopause symptoms take the progesterone in the luteal phase. It seems to help some of them. The theory is that they are not making enough progesterone to keep the estrogen in check. Anyway, it takes my pain down a notch. Progesterone has not been studied for pain relief as far as I know - but I am not in the medical profession. Beth Mueller