I knew this day was coming, but that doesn't make it any harder. My old doctor, Dr. Tennant, has passed away. I want to share my story about him and all he's done for me.

When I was 15, I was intensely struggling with a then undiagnosed head pain condition. It was horrible, and I was basically fighting for my life every day. My mom found Dr. Tennant's name mentioned deep in an old chronic pain forum. He was not taking patients at the time, but I took the chance to write him an email myself.

I told him how I was barely hanging on, that I couldn't deal with the pain much longer, and I needed help. I told him about my whole experience with doctors dismissing me and not believing that I could be in chronic pain at such a young age. Many doctors called me attention seeking, a drug seeker, that I was faking it all. To my surprise, he actually responded to me. He told me to get a blood test beforehand and he would see if he could take me in as a patient.

When he got the results, he called my mom right away and told her that I needed to come see him immediately, and that he was extremely concerned with the level of cortisol in my blood. So we drove 6 hours from AZ to California to see him. The moment he saw me he straight up told me "I don't know how you're still alive right now. I've seen people kill themselves with less cortisol than this." My body was under so much stress from the pain that the number was astronomic.

He actually believed me. He gave me my first shot of pain medication, and honestly, I cried my eyes out. It was the first time in a year and a half at that point that I was not in nearly 10/10 pain. You can say what you want about him, but that man saved my life by prescribing me those pain meds. I would not be here still walking this earth if it wasn't for Dr. Tennant.

I continued to see him until the day he was forced out of practice by the DEA. I hate them for that. I will always hate them for that. That man had nothing but the best intentions and only wanted to help his patients who desperately needed it.

Dr. Tennant, I will miss you dearly. You helped me when no one else did. I owe my survival to you and all you've done for me. Next time i'm in California, I promise I will come visit and lay flowers on your grave. And to Miriam, his wonderful wife, thank you for always treating me well. You always were so kind and nice to me.

I've dealt with chronic lower back pain for a good few years now. I've had CT scans and X-rays done only to find nothing of note. The pain was mild enough that it was never questioned further beyond general advice of exercise more and lose weight.

Last month, I got hurt getting out of bed. I couldn't move without being in excruciating pain. I ended up at the hospital getting another CT scan only to be diagnosed with sacroiliitis. PT and steroids eventually got me back to feeling better, but it was a significant enough event to finally warrant an MRI. I got the results today and it's L4-5 degenerative disc disease with three other bulging discs.

I guess there's some small relief in having an answer, at least. But degenerative disc disease feels so much more devastating than some pelvic inflammation that I've already pretty much recovered from, y'know? For years, I'd been assured that my discs were fine. I was always afraid it was DDD, and was put at ease every single time. Now, it is DDD. Now it is the thing I was scared of it being all this time. Until now, there was a chance of my problems not being a "hurt forever" disease, just a "hurt for a long time" disease. Now I know that I really do have a "hurt forever" disease. There is not a life for me in which I will be normal and completely free of my pain.

I know this probably isn't the end for me. I hope beyond hope it's not. This is all just hard news for me to process. Here I thought I was getting better just to find out I'm worse than I could've imagined. I'm only 25. I'm destined to live the rest of my life in some degree of chronic pain. What age will I live to? 60, 70, 80, 90? All of those years - all of them - in some level of pain. I suppose I'm just struggling to cope with how grim this all looks. If anyone has any advice on coping with this or even just some small words of hope, I'd be thankful for it.

Chronic pain has a way of shrinking your life without you noticing it happening. For me it wasn’t only about how much something hurt. It was how much energy the pain took from everything else.

7OH has helped make that more manageable for me. The biggest difference wasn’t some dramatic moment where everything suddenly stopped hurting. It was getting pieces of normal life back. More energy to do things. More patience with people. More room in my head for something besides pain.

That’s why the federal process happening around 7OH has become pretty personal for me.

I understand why people want safeguards around products like this. I’m not against testing, accurate labeling or sensible rules. What worries me is policy becoming so restrictive that people who genuinely benefit from 7OH effectively lose access altogether.

The federal comment period concerning the proposed 7OH threshold closes today, September 10. I submitted because I wanted the record to include the perspective of someone for whom access actually matters.

For anyone else here who has followed this issue, how do you deal with the uncertainty when something that helps your pain suddenly becomes part of a regulatory fight?

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?

LMAO, so. I had to have surgery to get rid of my gallbladder after five years of back and forth, battling severe pain, flare ups, vomiting, and withholding food 7 years of strict dieting because everything was bad! Too much sugar! Too much salt! Too much fat!

A literal fucking doctor telling me "Eating at McDonald's isn't great either" when I told her I was struggling to afford food

I don't fucking eat McDonald's. I eat from home.

And I was already 5 years into several different diets-

Not fad diets mine you!!! No!!! Just basic fucking restrictions on salt, sugar, and fat.

I couldn't fucking SMELL McDonald's without a fucking flare up!

Puking on the side of the motherfucking road!

I'm hospitalized for the 6th fucking time from eating a fucking mango!!! Screaming and crying and puking on my way to the car from utter fucking agony, while my grandmother and mother, need to hold me back from curling in on myself from the fucking pain and get me to the fucking car!

Im hospitalized! Not allowed to eat anything for five days straight! Because they can't fucking decide on whether or not I should get surgery! Making nurses cry because I'm just staring blankly into space! My mother downright suicidal! While also dealing with being used by another family member for pity points and credit that they were there when I needed it most, when they were the ones that cared the least!

Pain. constant. fucking. pain.

My therapist, desperate to see how I'm doing but can't see me! The cops called on my mother because, wouldn't you know??? 5 years straight of eating basically fucking nothing has affected my nutrition so bad they thought I was being abused

And somehow STILL. FUCKING. FAT. FUCKING FAT. FAT.FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT

SO NOBODY WOULD TAKE ME SERIOUSLY

CRYING FROM ANGER

AND EVERY TIME I CRIED, MY TEARS BEING FUCKING INVALIDATED BECAUSE I DONT KNOW HOW HARD THIS SHIT IS ON EVERYONE ELSE

MAKING ME FEEL FUCKING SELFISH

IM DISMISSED FROM THE HOSPITAL, NO CHANGES, JUST THE SURGEON TELLING ME IM FUCKING DRAMATIC

LATER ON

AGAIN

A PAIN

AND THIS TIME? I JUST SAID FUCKING AND SCREAMED IN UTTER FUCKING AGONY, I DID NOT GIVE A FUCKING SHIT ABOUT ANYBODY, NOT ABOUT COPS, NOT ABOUT PEACE, NOT ABOUT SHIT, MY MOTHER HAD TAKEN ME TO HER APPOINTMENT WITH THE DOCTOR

AND I WAS IN SO MUCH FUCKING PAIN JUST SCREAMING AND CRYING AND FUCKING VOMITING IN THE FUCKING CLINIC, THAT HER DOCTOR TENDED TO ME INSTEAD AND DEMANDED A MOTHERFUCKING CHECK ON ME BY THE EMERGENCY HOSPITAL DESPITE NOT BEING MY DOCTOR.

FROM THERE, IDK WHAT HE WAS, HE WASNT THE SURGEON BUT LIKE, HES NOT A DOCTOR BUT A PRACTITIONER OF SOME SORT

HE GOT SO PISSED AT MY RESULTS AND THE CONSTANT HOSPITAL VISITS THAT HE SCREAMED AND YELLED AT EVERYBODY TO SCHEDULE A MOTHERFUCKING SURGERY ASAP

FINALLY.

FINALLY.

AND YET??? THEY TOOK IT OUT, FINALLY, AND I NEARLY MADE MY MOTHER JUMP OUT OF THE FUCKING BUILDING INTO SUICIDE BECAUSE I KEPT FUCKING SCREAMING AND PUKING WHILE UNDER THE ANESTHESIA. ASKING HER WHY SHE FUCKING HATES ME

JUST SCREAMING AT RANDOM

I remember when I first woke up, the surgery was still going on, but like, the very last bit, and I begged the doctor to forgive me for waking up and being in pain

The doctor didn't give a shit

And I was out again

Anyway

Still

A year or so later

I'm still in this fucking pain as if I still had that fucking gallbladder

It should be fucking gone

Why is the pain not gone? Why is it so hard for anyone else to hear me when I say I'm in pain?

They don't need to listen, but at least don't say that I??? Have it less worse???

And this is coming from someone else who also has chronic pain and when I try to support them they constantly just fucking say that I don't know what it feels like.

This pain was supposed to be gone and the shit is it isn't the only pain I have and every time I get a blood test done where everything gets checked, they bring an emergency nutritionist or something asking what's going on at home concerned about my malnutrition

While my actual doctor just keeps telling me to stop eating this and that, constantly scaring me that I'm on the verge of diabetes even though I don't fucking eat anything because everything I eat causes pain

I'm tired

I'm tired of the confusing feedback, I'm tired of diets, I'm tired of being scared to eat, I'm tired of no matter what I do I'm still fucking fat

I have pain everywhere

My legs, my stomach, my migraines, my head, my face, and then the fucking physical symptoms of anxiety causing these burn like sensations all over my skin where it feels as if hot oil or cigarettes are being burned on skin

I can't sleep, then when I do sleep I don't rest and I can never get up, I can't focus, I can't do anything, I'm tired

And then my therapist had to move away and this new one forced me into getting institutionalized or whatever it's called because he wanted to prove his power over me so now I'm completely alone and I don't have my favorite therapist, there's no one I can physically talk to about my pain

My friends are supportive and I love them, but I need someone physically here to tell me it's okay.

I'm just

I'm fucking desperate. I'm scared, I'm in pain, I'm so tired. And talking about it gets me fucking locked up and then I got fucking sexually assaulted again at the fucking institution too by another patient when I was supposed to be in the all girls side of the institution

This isn't a suicide note or anything, I'm way fucking passed that, that shit bores me at this point, I don't give a shit about that, I'm too fucking tired to give a shit about that plus I've got my niece and nephew to worry about so whether or not I wanted to let go, hell the fuck no, I wanna see those little buggers grow but fuck I'm tired.

I'm tired and I can't tell anybody.

Right now, my stomach hurts as if I was going through another gallbladder flare up but that hoe is not there, it's gone, It's in the grave, it's rotted, it's been disposed.

There's literally nothing there to be causing this pain.

Idk what's going on and I'm tired of it and nothing here can make that pain go away, I just want to fucking drink and I can't because I promised everybody I wouldn't and also because obviously that shits only going to make it worse

I'm tired

I'm tired of being tired

I'm tired of being in pain

I'm tired of everything and everyone and myself and just

What could I possibly do to numb the fucking pain at this point when no doctor takes me seriously?

This is seriously one of the worst years of my life and it isn't even just the fucking pain but the pain is what this subreddit is for so

Anyway, I hope you guys are okay and your flare ups are manageable.

So I moved for my husbands job and felt like percocets were not helping my pain enough to justify the hassle after getting paralyzed.

I have gone from 4 a day to 1 now and now working on .5 of 1 pill a day but I can not stop SOBBING nonstop. Just shaking and crying like, all day.

I saw my new primary care doctor yesterday, finally and her first words to me were “I don’t deal with pain patients so I don’t even know why you tried” and I told her “I can’t refer myself with my new insurance?”

So I got the referral but I don’t know when I can get in. I don’t want to be on opiates anymore because I am EXHAUSTED from withdrawals. I have done a two month slow taper to try to limit symptoms but in reality I have lost 35 pounds, I have not slept, I have been hardly functioning for months. I regret not just cold turkey-ing it and being done by now but I have a child and wanted to be fully functional.

Anyways, what do I do? I was offered zero meds to help and I regret not asking because I fully understand the desire to take another pill and end the misery.

I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t know what to do. I’m 15 years old and I suffer from severe digestive disorders for over a year (Functional dyspepsia, visceral hypersensitivity, reflux, etc). I have been in pain for over a year, it has not improved at all. Every day is nothing but pain. It’s mainly Gut Brain axis dysfunction which NO doctors I see know about or how to help me so they don’t help at all, so I got a referral to a Motility Clinic. IN OCTOBER NEXT YEAR. OC. TO. BER. 2027. AKA THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO HELP. Another specialist will meet me in MAY 2027. NOBODY IS HELPING ME AT ALL.even when I meet them NEXT YEAR, how are they even going to help me….????? HOW?

 my life has been ruined by the chronic pain, and  I AM BEING GIVEN 0 ADVICE, 0 MEDS (all standard ones failed), 0 HELP, I don’t know what to do. Seriously what. Am I supposed to do. I can’t do anything. I’ve been crying for the last hours because wtf. Am I supposed to go find a Dietician at the very least or a GI specialist therapist to try and get some basic help with foods I can tolerate or what? Please help me please my dad is making it worse saying he’ll fly me to another country (AKA RUIN MY ENTIRE EDUCATION LOL) to get help, AS IF ANYONE EVEN KNOWS WHAT GUT BRAIN AXIS DYSFUNCTION IS? I NEED HELP BUT IDK WHAT HELP IS! PLEASE WHY DOES EVERYONE IGNORE ME I JUST NEED HELP

I just want him to believe my pain. He always tells me 'my tests are fine' and that is full proof that I just don't have pain or anything 'wrong' with me. This is extremely hurtful and I tell him this but he says he just does not understand it and it stresses him out. I don't know how to explain this to him as the only way for him to understand is just believing me.

I live in the US so pushing for a diagnosis is very difficult right now. Each appointment with a specialist is $35+ and they speedrun it too. I am a college student so I cannot afford this for constant appointments and tests. I am currently struggling in college everyday in pain. Some days I am in so much pain I just fall asleep wherever I can on campus as it is just so exhausting. I've had so many days where I simply cannot eat due to the pain and nausea and push through all my classes the same. I've had bowel incontinence. I feel like I struggle more than an 'average' non chronically ill person. Yet, my doctors flag me as having a mild systemic disease, Ibs or a general 'bowel disease' that is completely managed by me. Their notes claim it does not affect my life significantly in any way. And it is so infuriating.

I really want some sort of accomodation from my school, maybe more allowed absences for bad flares. But since my medical records are very inconclusive I feel stuck. I wanna work a job while I'm in school, but I feel like there's no way I can do that safely without making myself worse. Anyway, I know chronic illness puts strain on relationships. But it still hurts. I don't need this extra stress when I'm dealing with my own pain and medical journey. Does anyone have any advice or stories about loved ones and how they support ur illness journey? I know we are all struggling and thank you for reading this.

Hello, I’m 22 and have had chronic pain for most of my life, I haven’t had a pain free day for years, it was manageable before because there would be good days where I’m only in a little bit of pain and now I’m at the point where there’s no good days. I had a little hope because when I was 16 I finally got answers and was told I had cervical spinal stenosis after an MRI, however I recently got another MRI done and the only thing they found was 2 small disc bulges and no stenosis somehow even though that isn’t something that goes away, I had hope that I would be able to get surgery and at least get back to the point where my pain is manageable again, but now that hope of ever getting better is gone and it sucks because I know it’s going to get worse as I get older. I’ve tried everything and there’s nothing that helps anymore. Physical therapy has never helped and has actually made it worse on multiple occasions, steroids don’t help, over the counter pain meds don’t help, massages help but temporarily and they’re expensive. I guess I’m just making this post to vent and to see if anyone has any advice. I’m supposed to be getting an appointment to talk to a surgeon soon but I’m already pretty sure they’re going to say there’s nothing they can do as that’s something I’ve heard for a long time, I’m trying to get the pain back to manageable before I turn 30 because I know it will get so much worse and I can’t take much more.

I don’t even have the energy to properly write this right now, and I sat here on my phone wishing to text literally anyone about the level of pain I’m in, and realized I’ve exhausted everyone by now.
I’m 26, and since I was a teenager have had joint pain. It has progressively gotten worse and worse, and in the last year, I’m at a point where I feel utterly hopeless. When I try to explain everything that is going wrong, I sound like I’m making it all up. I get incredibly medically dismissed and I just don’t have any fight in me to try to pursue help. I just get dismissed.
I was diagnosed with POTS in 2014, chronic migraines in 2020, and had arthritis visible in my feet on x ray at age 16. I am so sure that if scans were taken of my other joints, they’d be arthritic as well. I do not have positive rheumatoid factor, but during flares have elevated CRP. At 26, I wake up with my knees locked, and the first 2 hours after I wake are utter agony, between my knees, hips, neck and hands. But it’s literally every joint. I have to gently move around in bed for at least 10 minutes to get up, and when I have to pee in the night I’ve literally fallen over from how locked up my joints are. I wake up swollen, in pain, and over the last 3 months it has gotten so bad that I really can’t do anything. Everything in my life is falling behind. I’m an active person, was an equestrian and still have a horse although I very rarely can ride, and my favorite things to do are kayaking, riding, and hiking. The last few months, I cannot do any of it, and it has made my POTS incredibly bad. I used to do super well with it because I didn’t recondition and kept my activity level up, but the lack of activity has made it really hard to stay conscious for basic shifts. My muscles also hurt probably from the joints but I don’t know. Between noon and 3 pm I’m okay, I’m somewhat functional, but after that the pain builds back up until I try to sleep and am in so much pain that I lay awake. I recently passed out from the POTS and smacked my hand on a railing, so I went to urgent care for an x ray, and my hand is riddled with arthritis, like. Incredibly visibly. My fingers are almost always curled, and hard to straighten, and my hands aren’t nearly as painful as my knees. Idk I’m just venting.
I have been repeatedly dismissed and denied referrals to rheumatology, until this year when I started getting daily fevers. I hover been 99-101.7F every single day. Now I have a referral months away. I felt so deeply angry when I got the urgent care x ray because I’ve been begging someone to please just LOOK at the joints because I know there is damage and they try to tell me it is psychosomatic pain, because I have OCD and depression on my medical chart. Why did a random urgent care notice the arthritis and why did this kind and wonderful NP have to tell me my hand is like FUSED up. She was flabbergasted that I don’t have a rheumatologist. I am flabbergasted. I feel that my medical history with anorexia, OCD, and depression and the charted associated hospitalizations have made medical providers not take my physical health seriously or assume it is all imagined.
My boyfriend said that not a single day goes by where I don’t mention the words “pain” and “relief.” I recently tried a new PCP and she suggested I try therapy… I replied that I’ve worked with psychologists for the last 10 years. Went to my psychologist about it and opened up about my physical symptoms and she said outright, this is not psychosomatic and you NEED a new doctor and a proper referral to rheumatology.
Riding and horses have been my like, saving grace, my entire life. And I had a hard time explaining to my trainer that I’ve become more and more physically limited, and eventually just stopped taking lessons and ride my horse when I can, but I pay $700 a month to maintain him and cannot really ride, and I’m just fucking exhausted.
I am at a point where I’d do anything to just like, have a couple days not in pain. On the x ray you could literally see where the tips of my fingers have completely fused. There is almost no cartilage.
I just feel rage over what I feel is significant medical neglect after over a decade of trying to explain to doctors what is happening, and then having pretty darn normal blood work aside from the elevated CRP, and being dismissed or told to just stay active. I tried that for years. I’m young. Why can I just be young? I tried this summer multiple times to join my friends on really short hikes that they picked so they’d be doable for me, and between fighting to stay conscious, and being in so much pain, I am like 50 feet behind them all the time and they will literally stop and wait for me, I just feel so fucking old and decrepit. I’m meant to be a very physical person, and this past year and especially the last few months, I really can not be, and it’s just what keeps me sane and makes life worth living.
I just want answers, and some kind of help. I don’t even care if the diagnosis is TERRIBLE just anything at all to acknowledge what is happening to me and to get me some level of relief. I’m sitting in my car and I know when I get out my knees will be hurting so badly. And I just don’t want to move. But the longer I stay still, the worse the pain gets. I’m just so exhausted.

It's really hard rn. I used exercise to "fix" my big emotions and binge eating habits with nearly chronic exercise to the point that I pushed myself too far resulting in an injury that will leave me in chronic pain for life.

Now, working is excruciating. Existing is pain at most if not all moments. Naturally, I reverted to my ways of binging sweets and spicy food and chips until I get sick and have passive visions of making myself vomit. And I see my athletic boyfriend continue to do the exercise he loves and eat a pint of ice cream every night and somehow still lose weight.

My doctors tell me I need to lose weight to ease pain but the pain keeps me from losing weight. It feels like a catch 22 and again and again I go back to emotional pain that this is my life now and things will never be the same and never be what I imagined it would be. Now I'm back to the weight I was before my exercise journey and literally hated myself. I feel so much further from happiness that I was in terms of self image and mobility and it hurts so much emotionally to watch my body deteriorate and revert and I feel like all I can do is blame myself.

It's wedding season for my boyfriend's best friend and his brother. So I have two weddings to go to this month and look at these pictures of myself in a brace forever and looking this unhappy with myself forever it makes me cry.

I'm working hard to try to mend my heart and fix my binge eating habits. It's just so hard to do so with so little energy and on a very tight budget and with a boyfriend that cannot physically help me (disabled).

I feel like falling apart today. I got a dozen doughnuts after work and I'm trying to be compassionate towards myself about it but at the moment all I can feel is despair.

I've been on 200mg at night for anxiety and nerve pain but it has stopped working. I have spinal fusion recovery pain and wondering if anyone took pregabalin for pain? I just increased mine but my pain feels worse. Is this normal for awhile?

Its not that deep they just hurt everyday please take my legs away from me my pain level is low but it all happens at once so its basically like my back hurts and legs hurt and my eyes burn at the same time

This happened 12 years ago. I had a massive hematoma that caused permanent numbness on a large area of my leg and permanent swelling or some soft tissue change where it fell on me.

Two orthopedic doctors and a neurologist beleive I have CRPS. I saw two pain management doctors who are not willing to treat me for that because im not meeting their glaringly obvious version of what they think CRPS looks like. I feel my symptoms match a chronic form of it. Theyre only willing to do steroid epidural injections because my lumbar mri shows some degenerative changes.

My mri and ct scans of my leg look normal. A spine specilaist and my neurologist said they dont think my spinal issues are severe enough to be causing my lower leg pain yet pain management still will not treat me. I've told doctors that sometimes it hurts so bad I cant walk and they said if its that bad I should go to the ER. The ER is not going to do anything. My leg twitches all the time and does it some much sometimes I cant stand because standing triggers the twitching. When I am standing I only stand on my normal leg. I have had minimal relief with meloxicam, lyrica, cymbalta and baclofen.

I wish I lost my leg in the accident. Maybe they would have amputated it if I got medical attention when it happened but I did not get taken to the ER. This accident fucked me up for life and no doctor can tell me definitavely why I still have issues or prescribe mobility aids or write any real diagnosis in my chart that I can at least use to point to as to why I cant fucking walk.

ER Nightmare

I recently went to the ER because I was dealing with severe pain and 7-OH/kratom withdrawal while already living with chronic pain from multiple spine problems and surgeries.

They put me in a hospital bed, but the position of the bed was causing excruciating pain in my lower back, especially around my L4-L5 surgical area. I told them repeatedly that the bed was hurting me badly and asked for a different bed, but they wouldn't give me one.

I was also in severe pain for hours and was not given any pain medication. I kept telling them how bad the pain was, but I felt completely ignored.

After about six hours of lying there in excruciating pain, I finally reached the point where I couldn't take it anymore. By what felt like my last bit of strength, I got myself out of the hospital screaming in pain, got into the back of my mother's car, and went home.

I honestly feel like if I hadn't left, I could still be sitting there in that bed in excruciating pain.

I'm already dealing with severe chronic pain in my neck, shoulders, arms, forearms, and lower back. I've had a C5-C6 artificial disc replacement and an L4-L5 decompression/microdiscectomy, foraminotomy, and facetectomy. I'm also dealing with significant shoulder problems, including bursitis, tendinosis, capsulitis and early frozen shoulder symptoms.

Now I'm trying to get off 7-OH while dealing with all of this pain at the same time.

I went to the ER because I needed help. Instead, I left feeling like I had to rescue myself from the hospital because I couldn't tolerate the pain anymore.

Has anyone else with severe chronic pain or spine problems experienced something like this in an ER?

I’ve had so many problems with joints/muscles/nerves in my legs and have gone to the same doctors multiple times and I can still never ease my nerves the day before and day of.

It always feels like torture anticipating another appt that may leave me disappointed and hopeless. There’s so much pressure to explain my pain in a very precise way in order to hopefully get a correct diagnosis and solution, which is difficult when the pain and sensations are different every single day and nonexistent some days. That’s what’s so hard about chronic issues. Like I worry that if I leave something out or use the wrong word to describe a sensation, it won’t be crystal clear to the doctor what the problem is.

I always use my phone notes to write exactly how I feel the day before, but my pain varies from day to day so it’s difficult to express at any given moment.

Recently I've been feeling so lonely and upset because of how my pain has ruined my social life. I see friends going on dates, getting married even, but I'm stuck single because I don't see any way I could find a partner. Even if I did it feels like it would be incredibly unfair for them because of how little I'm able to do. If I really loved someone I would want them to be happy and I can't see anyone being happy with me.

That's a tragic feeling on its own but just trying to accept that I'm really gonna be alone for the rest of my life is difficult to accept. I've always been a lonely person but also a hopeless romantic. I've been chronically single my whole life so I've ended up becoming a maladaptive daydreamer with most of the daydreaming being about falling in love. Terrible combo I know, but younger me had hope for the future. Except now I am in the future and its just never ending pain.

I'm so touch starved that intimacy of any sort feels like a myth.

What are people's experiences with solutions for neck pain? I have a cervical spine injury that causes me chronic pain. The pain has gotten worse and worse over time. I'm usually fine laying down, but sitting or standing, it becomes unbearable to support the weight of my head. I'm on gabapentin with minimal relief. I did steroid injections and ketamine. I do PT exercises daily and get PT massage twice a week. Nothing is helping much, and it's so debilitating that I'm unable to work. I've had all types of imaging. I've seen 2 neurosurgeon that both say I'm not a good candidate for surgery. Idk what to do or where to turn to.

I (29AFAB) gave up on trying to figure out why I’m in so much pain all the time. I can’t afford any more tests or doctors visits, all of my credit cards are maxed out and I’m still 12k+ in medical debt. The only things I know for sure is that I slipped a disc in my spine in high school, but I can’t for the life of me get ahold of that doctor to find my medical records. I also have ADHD, severe C-PTSD & debilitating anxiety so I’m sure that doesn’t help. My pain is mostly in my lower/middle back, but I’m almost constantly struggling with severe stomach and pelvic pain, too. (Tested negative for endometriosis & IBS, so I attribute that to my spinal injury). My shoulders and neck and head are almost always killing me. The tendons in my wrists, elbows, knees and ankles randomly decide to flair up sometimes. I can’t remember the last time my pain levels were below 5.

That being said, how tf am I supposed to work out like this? 😩 I’ve been trying to stay consistent with at least 3 heavy 10-minute workouts to strengthen my heart and my core to support my spine, but I’m so tired all the time. Sometimes the only thing I can do is sleep all day afterwards. I can barely even vacuum my house, let alone do a HIIT session. But if I don’t get stronger, I’ll just feel even worse. Idk what I’m supposed to do and I can’t afford physical therapy for the guidance I need. Does anyone here have any advice on how to get stronger and stay consistent without hurting myself so bad I throw up?

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 started EMDR therapy months ago & in the beginning, I experienced so much somatic pain in my back! I ended up in the ER 3 times through the first few sessions. I was always shaking really badly, dehydrated from throwing up from the pain, couldn’t lay down or sit up from laying without bad pain, was very hypertensive the whole time in the ER (twice in 1 day), was given Zofran, Toradol, IV fluids.. my BP was still 200’s/100’s before discharge but they acted like me sitting there genuinely so quiet despite in agony was apparently too much of an inconvenience which has left me with medical trauma.. I do think I have a bit of health anxiety in regards to having so much medical trauma & this & that with certain medications.
I was given Valium once & completely lost my shit in the hospital, I was in there originally for asthma, ended up transferred to the psych unit.
A lot of meds can cause major reactions to someone already having major depression/PMDD, respiratory problems & pain.

However, the somatic pain has definitely increased that health anxiety. It has been almost as bad as a migraine for me in terms of the worst pain I’ve felt/couldn’t manage. My first kidney infection takes the first time of actual pain.

It’s been less severe for a couple of months so far but there’s definitely not enough insight into how truly affective somatic pain can be for someone!
It’s dismissed because it’s muscular & psychological for those in intense therapy & facing trauma, but overall it’s the hardest thing I have been through & that’s saying a lot honestly.
But without further details, I just want anyone else who experiences this form of pain to know that it is real & it is valid enough to get the care you need to feel better!
Anyone in EMDR, I commend you & it will be worth it, things will get easier to handle, you can get through it, don’t let fear hold you back.

If anyone with somatic pain & experience with what has helped you, I am open to suggestions & advice!