I may not be the best person to respond as I didn't have much luck with meds controlling my pain and ended up dropping all except Lidoderm patches and clonidine patches (and only the former addresses pain and I only use it for flares). But I will tell you my experience and what DID help me when I was taking meds.

Narcotic pain meds NEVER even TOUCHED the RSD pain for me. I might as well have been taking tic tacs for all the good they did for me. And I've taken them before and since for other types of pain and they do provide me with good relief...just not for my RSD. The best mix of meds I was ever on was a combination of Lyrica, Meloxicam, Tramadol, and Doxepin. This kept me at a pretty consistent 5 on the pain scale and functioning for about a year until a work comp hold up left me without meds cold turkey for a week and then nothing got me back to that level again. I tried those same meds, different meds, and it was no good. Even the small relief I got from some was just not worth the side effects and then I ended up with serotonin syndrome from the meds and that was the end of that.

Everyone is different and hopefully someone else can pop in with suggestions on what works for them. For most...it seems it's more about finding the right combination of meds for the pain, inflammation, something to help sleep, etc. There are so many components to what we deal with when it comes to RSD and we tend to focus the most on the PAIN but when you are on the right combo it can help other things too that will just generally improve our quality of life.

Other things that I use for pain though are a TENS unit, hot baths with Epsom salts, ultrasound heat therapy, heating pads, change in diet, and as I mentioned before the Lidoderm patches. I also avoid the things that trigger my pain as much as possible and adjust how I do things to work within my limitations and avoid pain flares.