Chronic Pain members - Welcome, please introduce yourself

@ To all my pain warriors!!!!! I get so saddened for all of us. People and even our doctors, don't really understand. Yes, there are some good doctors, that really try to do their best, but "THE STATE OF THE ART" with chronic pain is entirely limited. Most drugs barely work, and few patients are lucky enough to respond well with limited side effects and lowered pain. The opiod crisis has made it almost impossible for the pain patient to get the medicines he needs. And truly, unless you experience this relentless, unstoppable pain, you don't quite get it. And you shouldn't, really! I think we all have protective mechanisms inside ourselves that buffer us from human suffering. It is way too much to hear, to think about, to really feel. Even my pain doctor really does not like to talk about pain!!!! I swear, the guy does not like it!!! He is more of a "fixer" type. He can handle the epidurals, surgeries, etc., but the discussions make him squirm. I actually think he is a softie. But I really can't talk to him. Those of us who have even one person to really hear, are very lucky. The mechanisms of pain are getting more and more understood. The treatment seems almost not there. The insidiousness of CRPS is astounding. How it can morph, go from one place to another!!! The Science behind CRPS is unbearable to even read! Pain in itself, is a disease. It spreads, it morphs like an evil monster. I told God to give me a day I could handle today. I told God to not give me more than I can handle. I told him to keep an eye on me. I wake up, each new day, with both hope, and terror. In a blink of an eye, goes anyone. May God bless and keep all of you, Lori Renee

@ To all my pain warriors!!!!! I get so saddened for all of us. People and even our doctors, don't really understand. Yes, there are some good doctors, that really try to do their best, but "THE STATE OF THE ART" with chronic pain is entirely limited. Most drugs barely work, and few patients are lucky enough to respond well with limited side effects and lowered pain. The opiod crisis has made it almost impossible for the pain patient to get the medicines he needs. And truly, unless you experience this relentless, unstoppable pain, you don't quite get it. And you shouldn't, really! I think we all have protective mechanisms inside ourselves that buffer us from human suffering. It is way too much to hear, to think about, to really feel. Even my pain doctor really does not like to talk about pain!!!! I swear, the guy does not like it!!! He is more of a "fixer" type. He can handle the epidurals, surgeries, etc., but the discussions make him squirm. I actually think he is a softie. But I really can't talk to him. Those of us who have even one person to really hear, are very lucky. The mechanisms of pain are getting more and more understood. The treatment seems almost not there. The insidiousness of CRPS is astounding. How it can morph, go from one place to another!!! The Science behind CRPS is unbearable to even read! Pain in itself, is a disease. It spreads, it morphs like an evil monster. I told God to give me a day I could handle today. I told God to not give me more than I can handle. I told him to keep an eye on me. I wake up, each new day, with both hope, and terror. In a blink of an eye, goes anyone. May God bless and keep all of you, Lori Renee

I did the last part of your post yesterday in fact. Shame on me. I was reading something political on Facebook and I was at the peak hour of my pain cycle (right before my next pain meds) and some idiot made a stupid comment and I said the same thing or something like it.
I dared him to walk an hour...a day in my shoes and maybe his perspective on life in this Nation, of this World may change.
Of course he came back with some ego-filled, hate-mongering, racist comment but what am I to expect?

I found doctors who listen to what I'm concerned with and try to help me with that. I have been to doctors who don't listen, they ask the questions the computer tells them to ask and prescribe what the computer tells them to. I left those doctors and kept looking until I found ones that listen. Peggy

@suzanne2 and group I see so many of us prescribed Gabapentin. Some folks on high doses. I am taking 600 mg a bedtime (No don't sleep} and pain management and neurologist say that is a baby dose and I need to go up. Why. I don't see a difference except during the day it makes me tired at 900 mg which she wants me to take Everyone I talk to takes gabapentin even those without neuropathy. How many here are prescribed gabapentin and do you see a difference in your pain level? Thank you. Oh I did hear that it acts as a sedative. Is that so for anyone?

Lori, God is the only Strength I have to get through today. Yes, some days it’s more than I can handle. He doesn’t promise that He won’t give us that but He does say He will give us the Strength that surpasses all understanding and I can get through anything with Him.
Did I count on it being a life with congenital hearing and sight difficulties, IBD, a frozen shoulder for two years and arthritis for 15, and now, of all things, CRPS? Of course not.
But I stopped looking in the past and dwelling on my future long time ago. I can’t waste energy on them. Lol
You probably know exactly what I’m talking about too!
My body is ravaged every single second and I must focus on quarantining my mind from that torture.
Most everyone in this nation is preoccupied about COVID-19 right now. I could care less. Why?
Why worry about getting a virus that has a 2% mortality rate when I already live in hell today.
And if the truth be known, I’ve seen a multitude of physicians since 2017 and only one has listened AND understood what I’ve told him about my life of pain and that was Dr. Angelo Santiago, the neurologist who spent 9 hours diagnosing me the day I saw him in February of 2018. Why? He spent a year learning how to walk, speak, and practice his craft again after an automobile accident nearly took his life.

SMH... wow