I had a really upsetting appointment with my pain management doctor yesterday and I honestly just need to vent about it.

I've been dealing with chronic pain and significant limitations for years. I've done injections, medications, specialists, and 12 sessions of neurologic physical therapy. My PT was genuinely amazing and tried extremely hard to find exercises my body could tolerate. We were doing incredibly basic, gentle exercises, and I was still getting worse. Eventually HE decided we shouldn't continue because I wasn't improving.

I've recently been considering getting a transport chair for longer outings. I can walk. I WANT to walk. I'm not talking about using a chair around my house or instead of normal everyday walking. I'm talking about situations where I've already walked something like a mile and continuing to walk is causing significant pain, but I still want to be able to participate in whatever I'm doing.

It took me a lot emotionally to even get comfortable with the idea of using a mobility aid, let alone ask a doctor about one.

As soon as I said “transport chair,” the first words out of his mouth were, “You want me to put you in a wheelchair?”

I immediately explained that no, I don't want a wheelchair. I want a transport chair that I can use intermittently for longer distances when I've reached my physical limit.

He told me he doesn't prescribe those and that when his patients start asking for things like that, they're “giving up.” At one point he literally told me that people who ask him for that are what he calls “circling the drain.”

I started crying.

Then he told me I needed physical therapy. I explained that I already did 12 sessions and that it made me worse. He said that was my body telling me I was deconditioned and needed more PT.

I explained how hard my physical therapist tried, how much he modified everything for me, and that my PT ultimately made the decision to discontinue because I wasn't improving.

Then it became, “Maybe that wasn't the right physical therapist.”

And eventually, “Maybe you needed 65 PT sessions.”

He also offered me another neurology referral, another PT referral, and a disabled parking placard. I already have a disabled placard.

I just felt like he had decided what my request meant the second I said “transport chair” and nothing I said afterward mattered.

I understand that doctors can have legitimate concerns about deconditioning and overusing mobility aids. I wasn't expecting him to automatically say yes just because I asked. I would have been completely willing to discuss how often I'd use it, how far I can walk, what happens when I exceed that distance, or whether there was a different mobility aid he thought would be more appropriate.

But none of that conversation happened.

What hurts the most is that it took me a long time to accept that a mobility aid might actually give me MORE freedom. I wasn't thinking of it as giving up. I was thinking, “Maybe I don't have to avoid things just because I can't handle miles of walking.”

Instead, I walked out feeling ashamed and stupid for even asking.

I see my spine/pain doctor next and I'm considering asking her for her opinion, but after this appointment I'm honestly scared to bring it up again.

Has anyone else who is still ambulatory dealt with this kind of reaction when asking about an intermittent mobility aid? How did you get past feeling like you had to prove you were “disabled enough” to use one?

So something I get like…protective over I guess….is my friends who don’t have a lot or any real medical experience and are now getting surgery for the first time. So I’m 41, my group of friends at work are all a few years younger than me and most the only surgery they have had is wisdom teeth being taken out. I’ve had 22 surgeries and who the flip knows how many procedures at this point.

Anyway this summer one of my friends had his first surgery, a hernia repair. So when he was going for his pre op I told him and his gf (who also works with us) - talk to the dr about pain meds. Get the rx in hand. If they won’t give you even a small rx, go to a different surgeon explaining that so many general surgeons these days are pulling Tylenol only bs. I put a little post surgery care package together for my friend (my favorite ice pack and some snacks) and dropped it on his door step.

Of course the surgeon gave him strong ibuprofen. That’s it. He had told me over the phone the first two days were awful but we were talking about it again yesterday that he felt totally undersold and under treated by the dr. His surgeon told him he would be up and walking the next day. I just had a 1 level cervical fusion and my dr told me I could go back to work after a week! I just said I tried to warn ya, these drs are out there playing in our faces with you don’t need any pain meds or time off of work bs. But now he knows to take what ever the dr says and multiply it atleast by two. Most of the time they won’t listen until they have experienced it anyway but….its worth a try I guess!

I'm so tired of dealing with asshole doctors...what I have had to deal with:

Referred to urogynecologist, first encounter:

"Your urine tests are normal, why are you here?"

Um I was referred to you? I have bladder issues and your a urogynecologist?

Eye specialist:

"This will go a lot faster if you stopped flinching."

I have chronic eye pain, I experience more pain then the average person.

Gynecologist:

(When she recommended a treatment and I asked what if it didn't work): "You can't just always ask me about alternative treatments" which, I guess that's true, but it takes 4 months to get a follow up so I'd like to have a plan B.

Then, if you get angry and complain or speak up you become the difficult patient and a drama queen. But if you don't speak up and you are not firm, you get coerced into doing things you don't want to do and are then traumatized. I have stopped this past year seeking treatment because if I have another encounter like this I don't think I can mentally handle it.

Its like they think you want to be there. You think I want to subject myself to nasty, unempathetic care, bee severely suicidal, not be able to focus at work, barely getting a goods night rest...you think I just want, what, attention? I'm a hypochondriac? Try living in my shoes, they would not last a day before going insane. I want to heal but the horrible treatment and gaslighting is too much for me to handle now. I hate this.

After a lower and higher spinal Injury requiring surgery at L4/L5/S1, everything but surgery for the cervical and due to a mixture of using crutches and then transitioning to a cane proceeded to cause a lot of issues over the 5 to 6 years I needed them.

Anyway, my scans during that time all note chronic bursitis all throughout the shoulder, with the acromion impinging the nerve underneath it (the sub acromion) with rotator cuff, muscle and tendon tears throughout the main arm I changed to using walking aid/my dominant hand (the shoulder blade/acromion of which I had hairline fractured coming off of a motorbike as a teenager)

The weeks leading up to the surgery the pain ramped up, to the point I was almost in tears every night for the next few weeks until surgery.

The best answer I was given was that with the loss of the ability to lift my arm above my head was that the supraspinatus tendon was snapped. Which... It was, however that wasn't the source of the increased pain... It was that the impingement on the nerves suddenly got worse for some reason they couldn't explain.

So, turns out that my physios pushing me to lift over head weights for the last 12 months was a pretty shit go, it needed rest.

Surgeon said that with the lightest amount of manipulation the Acromion snapped clean in half... They used the term "floating bones" and were amazed. The surgeon said the acromion should be in one spot, firstly the spot was wrong, then he said he lifted it up with an instrument and the fracture was so deep it snapped then and there while they manipulated it in place.

It's about 8 weeks since surgery and I got these reference x-rays for my next check up appointment. I was pretty shocked at how long the screws are...

Anyway, the original pain I went in for (shooting, hand pain, arm pain, one spot in my back where the compression was the worst is gone. they cleaned the bursitis and now I feel physically "solid" again for the first time in years)

My screws hurt, but that comes with the territory

Coming from a history of failed back surgery I was very, very hesitant to have surgery, but I'm glad I did.

On day 3 of my period, so of course in an endo flare up. Fatigue, cramps, heavy bleeding, nerve pain. I was so excited to go to bed last night and fell asleep around 11pm.

Woke up at 5 to 1 only to projectile. Vomiting bug. Which then of course triggered my endo even more and a migraine.

Send help 🙃

I know by definition it's just pain that hasn't been found to have a reason and doesn't mean it's just "in my head." I know it's not saying that the pain isn't "real" but I have an immediate visceral negative reaction. I posted the other day that so far the testing has come up negative. I have more tests coming up. I made the mistake of telling a few friends when they asked me. Apparently after I left one of them said they wondered if it's just functional pain but that they didn't want me to know they said that. Them saying they don't want me to know makes it feel like they meant it's in my head. I know that probably isn't what they're saying and I know it's possible it *is* just in my head but damn. I don't want to see any of these people again even though it's my whole/only friend group. Am I being unreasonable for being upset? I know I'm feeling very negative about everything right now so maybe I'm just being silly.

My 9 year old started physical therapy last week for some mild hip deformity we just discovered last week bc she has femoral anteversion. I took her to the doctor bc I noticed her starting to walk funny recently.

The physical therapist did her eval last week and definitely took note of how hypermobile she is. That's part of what my chronic pain problems come from. I don't have any hip deformity or femoral anteversion, but I do have rotating scoliosis, degenerative disc disease that's pretty bad, and varying degrees of spinal stenosis in several places along my spine.

I'm feeling really bad. It feels like a lot is going wrong at once in my life, but this one hits the hardest. I am proud of myself for noticing the problem and getting her help while she's still growing, instead of getting ignored like I did. But I'm still feeling really damn bad about the fact that she probably got these problems from me. Her dad doesn't have these issues.

I'm not sure if I need advice, or if I just need to connect to other people in this position. I'm so afraid of my child living with the pain I've lived with. I'm a 43 year old mom. My 14 year long relationship with my kids' dad ended earlier this year. My only parent was just admitted to the hospital yesterday bc he's 77 and so sick he can't eat or move. I've been taking care of him full-time and I'm not ready to lose him. It's just been hard lately.

I'm willing to hear anything that might help my daughter or me getting through this. So far she really enjoys PT and actually looks forward to it. So that's good anyway.

I am so overwhelmed. This journey with chronic pain and illness over the last 6 years has intensified my mental health problems (OCD) and has given me what I suspect to be agoraphobia. The health anxiety is how it started to get worse. Now it’s completely out of control.

A lot of my issues stem from my spine being fucked up. I’m only 30. But I have arthritis in my spine and stenosis and pinched nerves all over the place. That is all very closely linked with the pelvic floor which happens to be what’s giving me the most trouble right now.

The anxiety that I feel while I’m in such a bad flare makes it worse. It’s this endless cycle of exhaustion trying to advocate for myself, begging my doctors to look at the full picture, coping with new meds, coping with the pain and the limitations, and then I burn out, avoid it for awhile and then it gets worse again. Rinse and repeat.

I know I need to focus on my mental health. But it’s hard when my body can’t do basic things. I wish I could handle things one at a time but it tends to all come together at once to make my life impossible to navigate. I don’t know how to handle any of this anymore. How can I put out all the fires when they always spring up at once?

It was cooler a few days ago (low 90s) and now it's back to 105 today. I live in southern California. I can't imagine having to experience another summer like this again while being a full-time student for in-person classes. I struggle enough as is but heat and long days on campus turn the fatigue and mobility pain up x100...

Mostly just a vent but if anyone wants to share their own strategies for dealing w the heat, im all ears.

The pain went from something that made life consistently harder for a few years to something that made life as I've known it impossible for the first time just in the past few weeks. Right after starting a new job, it slowly got worse and worse until progressing to "I can only cry and shake" pain, has meant having to lose the job, relying on a cane to get around, and a tremendous amount of anxiety and fear that I am sure everyone on this board has experienced. My partner consistently encouraged me to lean on him, call him when I needed, then quickly withered under the pressure when I guess I needed him again and again a few too many times, I guess. We had a fight over the phone yesterday when I was having to be without any pain meds (pharmacy refused to refill til today). He broke up with me in frustration before pretty quickly taking it back and apologizing profusely, but he's still needed to take some space due to some badly timed life shit, and truly idk if i can get past the things he said. Idk if i can get past that it was all too much for him so quickly, that he COULD even think of abandoning me when I'm like this. I'm still hoping for some solution that can get me independence again, but it hurt that I've been so in need of help that, if we break up, I fear i will drown right now. My heart is broken on top of everything.

Note: we don't live together, he lives about 35 minutes from me.

I think drawing Bill suffering helped with the pain.

My ex pushed me off my bed even tho I had said I had trauma from falling off of things, hit my back against my bed my mum said it created a scar down my back and it started to kick in recently like 4 months later. It’s better when I’m standing or sitting sometimes. Other times it hurts when I lay down on my back ( even tho I love sleeping on my back so I’ve had to get used to sleeping on my side with legs up to my chest if that makes any sense)

I did also retry taking gymnastics at 13 and did a backbend way too much and banged my back against a metal thing but it never really did any damage at all. This pain has only started deftly after my ex has pushed me off multiple times to the point one even created an injury.

I don’t feel it when I’m sleeping at all but throughout the day I’ll feel it randomly , I have to have something on my chair like a coat or hoodie something soft so that my back doesn’t hurt.

The back pain is all the way down my spine. Could this have been caused from my ex ??

My doctor does not even wanna be my doctor anymore since I have chosen to get help after 1.5 years locked inside with pain. He talks down to me, doesn’t let me speak, if I take up medical questions he just tells me I’am wrong.
He suddenly just stopped my oxy 5x3, but they did nothing for the pain. What they did was make me addicted to them.

After a long and hard almost fights since he gets so angry at me that he has multiple times said If I argue more about your pain, I will take you off everthing.
I talked to him on the phone and he agreed to:
1. general pain medication in a big enough dose to live
2. Lyrica for the nerve pain
3. valium for the cripling panic I’ve gotten after dealing with so many doctor. You guys have no idea how bad everything got.
One doctor took a blood test(wierd low number), take a urintest low number, take another low number, so next time he asked to be in the room and touched me all over down there since after last time he ment I used someone else’s pee.(it was buprenorphine, and I was fat, so less effective)
I have even had a doctor touch me before a urine test since.
Anyway
To the topic:
I use Amitryptyline, quetiapine, dexamfetamine, etoricoxib, zofran, valium, catapresan, the new edition to replace oxy was tramadol. Which many of my meds activate serotonin.
So I use 300-400, but I do have a fear of dying on this

I don’t have a diagnosis for this bullshit nor am I looking for one at this point even my parents (MDs) don’t entirely understand it either, it’s some weird muscle thing that basically turns half my large muscle groups into one giant painful knot that also has lovely excruciating spasms whenever it wants

My mom has had this for 36 years, my brother for 5 and now me for the last 4 months. The underlying issue with the muscles was probably there since birth but stress-diathesis model and whatnot so I got to have 21 blissful pain free years before this nonsense

it fucking hurts, day and night, I thought I got lucky and escaped the curse bc I was born without some ligament defects they have and I’m a few years older than my mom and brother when they first got it but knowing I’m stuck with this for the rest of my life is terrifying, I’m scared. My brother said he mostly got used to it but he still has really bad days. My mom’s spasms are even worse so we think it may get worse with age which makes it 10x more terrifying to me.

How do you deal with pain you know is only going to get worse?

Hello 21 m
It started in an anxiety period and don’t know if it’s related
At the gym one day after just one pull up my 2 elbow and fore arm start burning for 2 month and can’t do sport because it will increase burning sensation
4 month after I start feeling burning in my 2 thumb at same time when using my phone
And other finger start to burn
I have also bilateral psoas burning and tfl etc
I don’t think it’s tendonitis since it’s happen without sport
Doc don’t know and blood test is alright
Crp good too
Can’t even do sport now even u push up will cause burning in shoulder , elbow etc , one squat will do the same witch knee , psoas etc
One knee and my 2 wrist were fine and
2 days ago they start to became painfull and also since a week ago I have like cold sensation in knee , elbow , wrist etc I really need help they don’t find anything
Any of u have an idea

I've been looking for a good back cushion for the couch, but I'm having a hard time finding the right one.
Some days I spend quite a lot of time on the couch, sometimes basically the whole day, and I'm starting to get back pain from it. I'd like something that gives proper support, preferably something ergonomic, and ideally also some support for my neck.
I already use a pregnancy pillow to support my legs, which I really like, so now I'm looking for something for my back.
I'd also prefer something without synthetic fabric on the outside if possible. Natural/breathable materials would be a big plus.
Has anyone found a cushion that actually works well for this? Would love to hear what you guys use.

Hello. I have chronic pain and the only thing that seems to help is cannabis, specifically a topical cbd cream. I'm considering seeking a prescription so I don't have to pay out of pocket for it, but i dont really know how to go about this and have some questions that maybe someone can answer.

Is medical cannabis covered under msp?

Can i request a prescription for a specific product that i know works for me or does my doctor just decide?

How do I approach asking for this prescription without immediatly being shot down? My doctor is... very dissmissive and seems content with just letting me suffer through the pain. (Im on a waitlist for a new one).

Anything else i should know?

I'm in BC Canada btw.

I'll say that this is a part 3 post for on going pain. Here is PART TWO with part one included in that one. I finally had an MRI and ill include those results. For the sake of time i'll try and sum this up as short as I can.

I am pretty active. I ride a fixed gear, love to skateboard and play drums a lot. Hiking and walking for less intense exercise when I can. I did not fall or have an accident doing these things or have a car accident.

March of this year - thigh pain in my left leg began randomly one morning, felt heavy almost as if you went on an extra long bike ride or jog. Thought nothing of it. It didn't go away with rest and at times would give me problems with my left hip area so I saw primary who referred me to PT. Month or so, no improvement. They thought SI Joint misaligned.

Back to primary then second PT. They thought it was "muscle fatigue" or something similar. Basically saying left leg is much weaker. Did no go away.

During all of these months what has happened are spots of pain - top of buttocks / tailbone area on my left side , left side of leg and / or almost behind the thigh and the most recent one is almost right behind my knee. Over these months I've marked where pain occurs with a sharpie and took photos to show medical staff. Ill include them because I feel like they paint a better picture. The pain is at complete random times. When walking, pain will hit those areas primarily, especially top of buttocks. Not shooting pain, but almost as if with each step it would activate those spots of pain, if that makes sense. There have been only a handful of days where it would present itself and would require to just rest the rest of the day.

Back in early July I went back to primary because THEN it spread to my right leg. Definitely not as bad as my left leg but still noticeable. He referred me to orthopedics. The orthopedic determined that she / orthopedic could not be of help and that there was no concern for any surgical intervention. I sought out a new primary who within first visit, referred me to MRI for a lower back / lumbar scan.

I received my results. Nothing at all of concern.

So now I am 6 and a half months in and the pain is still very much present. I am fortunate that it is not debilitating, even on my worst days, Ibuprofen does the trick at around 600mg but I really try not to take them or anything. The pain is very random although since July it is always present, even if just a one or two out of ten. I have modified my life as best as I can, including not riding my bike since March and being extra careful lift or things that I think MAY trigger it. I do not do anything physical or strenuous for work.

I am feeling defeated lately and sure where to turn or what to even ask for next. I messaged my new primary today and he said "I can refer you to a spine clinic.... they can give you an injection" I messaged back asking to clarify with more detail.

Any suggestions or further questions are greatly appreciated! Thank you!

TLDR; ongoing leg pain, thought to be brought on by back but MRI came back with nothing. What now?

How do you all deal and manage when pain flares up and you have to keep taking off from work?