Share Your Pain Story

999 Replies to “Share Your Pain Story”

1. I fell from a ladder to a concrete slab 15 feet below. I was broken. I have undergone 10 surgeries 6 of which were spinal. I can barely walk and have tried every medication available and only opioids work. Without them I can not get out of bed in the morning and even with them have issues. I have been on the same dose for two years and am suffering because my pain doctor is afraid to up them. I never wanted this but am stuck with it. I will be on them the rest of my life. I am responsible and only trying to stay out of pain.

2. Just ran across this website on FB and wonder if I should share my story. Severely injured in the military (Vietnam era) but able to retire with 60% disability. Since then, MRI demonstrates only 3 discs are viable and the spinal vertebrae continue to degenerate at an alarming rate. Just last week, MD was suppose to order walker, wheelchair, and home physical therapy. Of course, no one has called yet or delivered the equipment. I sit here thinking about how I am required to undergo drug tests in order to receive pain medication – must see a specialist, since family practice physician cannot order Schedule I drugs. Cannot use the military pharmacy, as there are insufficient parking spaces and no shuttle service for the disabled. An average of 2-4 hour wait time is not possible. Suicide Hotline is available, but of little use. Thinking of moving to Oregon, establish residency, and just get life over with.

3. My 86 year old father has suffered from chronic pain since breaking his back nearly 60 years ago. He has been meticulous with his medications but has needed more medication over the last 20 years with arthritis in his arms and legs. He cannot get a higher dose from pain management than he gets now so Mom must listen to him cry in pain as he goes to sleep each night and wakes up several times during the night. He should not have to suffer at this age.

4. Hi,
   I live in constant pain. I have had multiple shunt surgeries for Pseudo Tumor Cerebri that went on for 15 years and 37 shunt revisions. Now I have Chiari Malformation, Pulmonary Hypertension, and my diaphragm is 75% paralyzed. My spine has about 5 or 6 diseases including severe DDD, disk bulging and protrusions, severe stenosis, spondylosis, scoliosis etc etc. I can’t get out of bed nor wash myself and I have no life left. The pain doctors are too afraid to write anything and the opioids are all that works. I am not allowed injections of any kind because of the Chiari. Nor can I take Tylenol or Aspirin or Motrin or steroids due to liver and kidney failure. I live alone in Port Huron Michigan with no family, and do not know where to turn for help. I’m also in heart failure and just wondering how much my heart can take? This is not living, and the pain meds helped me at least cook for myself and shower myself. At this point I do just want to give up because the only thing I have to look forward to is more PAIN. Wished something would budge a little. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS…

5. I am age 57 and had a very high pain tolerance, as do most of my family members, until I underwent an emergency C-Section on my 20th birthday, which resulted in my losing my firstborn daughter within 2 hours to Amniotic Ban Syndrome. Due to fetal emergency, I was not given enough anesthesia and felt the entire surgery, with NO ability to let them know I was awake and the agony I suffered!!! I could hear everything in the operating room regarding the distress my baby was in, desperately focusing on her needs while enduring the excruciating physical torture of being degutted!!!

   Afterwards, my pain tolerance was completely opposite. I have undergone several surgeries over the years, some bad complications, with the last surgery resulting in my becoming disabled in 2006. My quality of life has been extremely poor over the past 1.5 years, as I am forced to live in a severe 7-8 pain scale ALL the time, due to a drastic reduction in my opioid pain medication within the new guidelines. My disability has not improved in these 14 yrs and I feel abandoned as this new protocol is NOT managing my severe PAIN and SUFFERING!!! I have never experienced any addiction issues and just need my quality of life back!!!

6. I’ve had 26 surgeries for several birth defects. I’ve needed pain medication since I was 2 months old and I’m now 53. I cannot function without my pain being subsided and I have been through every possible way of relieving it known to man and/or woman. But now, NOT because I have abused meds in any way, but because others have, I am constantly in severe pain without relief because I cannot get the medications I need. Please help all of us that are being punished by doctors because of those abusing meds, not those of us that truly need them.

7. My story isn’t nearly as bad as the others I’ve read on here but I’d still like to share. I picked up a dog wrong at work and damaged my back and SI joints. Herniated discs and slipped discs about midway to the bottom. So I suffered in severe pain for nearly a year and a half. I finally got into a pain management office for the doctor to prescribe me a medicine meant for Parkinson’s disease. He told me there was no way he would prescribe opioids, even though they would definitely help. He said if I was 80 years old he would, but I was too young to be on pain pills (I’m 35). He recommended I go to classes to learn to live with the pain, as it would be a life long issue. That was unacceptable for me and I found another physician who actually helped me. I am on a low dose of medicine, and stable with my pain. I am thankful for the doctor helping me, but not everyone is so lucky. I hear from a lot of people who say their doctors deny them any sort of pain control and prescribe outlandish amounts of Tylenol and Ibuprofen. I can’t take Ibuprofen anymore without getting ulcers and nausea. I’ve told the docs this and they tell me to take it anyway (if I really need it)… I always need pain relief, so? So now I’m waiting to have a spinal cord stimulator implanted. Which insurance will likely deny several times before they allow it. If they won’t allow people proper pain control, then they must offer an alternative to the medicine, which they do not do. Physical therapy does not help when you have discs grinding against one another, but insurance requires it before other treatment can be performed.

8. I am living with both fibromyalgia and neuropathy. I was bedridden 10 years ago at the onset. The nerve pain in my legs was unbearable. Like someone setting my legs on fire while at the same time dipping them in freezing water. My feet burn all day. My feet feel like they are being crushed all day. The feeling of clothing touching my skin is painful. The skin on my legs burns all day. I cry a lot. After trying several drugs that either failed due to lack of efficacy or failed due to side effects, I finally found a neurologist who wrote for a low dose opioid patch. My life changed. I now am able to take care of my dogs and my family. I am not pain free. I still live with a level of pain that is a 4 or 5. I don’t know what a pain free day is. I haven’t had one in over 10 years. My opioid patch at least gives me the ability to function. I still have to lay down on a heating pad several times a day, but at least I can exercise and take care of my family. We are not addicts. I have not increased the strength of my patch in years. We just want to live a somewhat comfortable life. Before, I was contemplating suicide due to the pain. If my pain meds are removed, I will again. I have tried alternative medicine and treatments to no avail. Spent thousands of dollars on acupuncture, CBD, etc. Please allow me to take what works. I should not have to beg for it. I would love to testify before congress to tell my story. I am not afraid of these lawmakers.

9. I am a 60 yo registered nurse, who has been living with pain since 35 yo. I have arthritis in my back and have broken my back in several places from falls. i have been on methadone and oxycodone for 25 years.

   I see a pain specialist too. I do not abuse my meds, and have decreased – not increased – my meds over the years.
   My meds work to control my pain. I also get injections that help. I have chronic skin infections, MRSA, which has resulted me in now being a bka. And fear I may lose my other leg due to chronic infections. Yet I am treated like an addict when I go to ER, for these frequent skin infections. But what I am on for meds currently, works. I don’t do street drugs and never have. As a nurse I follow the rules, yet get treated poorly for it. The threat of losing the meds that I am on because some idiot abuses medications is just sad and scares me.

10. My name is Cindy Cirlincione and I was originally diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1999. Anyway it’s a long story. I’ve done so many treatments. Now years later I’m in chronic pain 24 hours a day seven days a week. The pain doctors are not handing out any medications that help with pain. Cats and dogs are treated better than human beings. Such an inhumane problem in our society. I hope to God they can help us before too many people end their lives.