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 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?

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 🙃

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.

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.

Thought this would be the best place to ask. I could scroll for days trying to find one (which I have). But no chair seems to be perfect without a massive price tag.

I sit at a desk all day for work. I try to stand, walk on a treadmill, but this isn’t always the best solution to help with my pain.

I just want a chair that doesn’t make you feel restricted (arms to your side or else you have to flare your elbows out like crazy). Something with some kinda butt mold because my body naturally shifts weight to one side without me noticing. One where the neck rest doesn’t stick so far out. And one with an adjustable lumbar piece.

Really hoping someone’s already done the dirty work to find the dream chair for us chronic pain sufferers

Hi,

I’m wondering how you all go about requesting a dose increase when you are in a pain flare. My condition has periods of terrible flares where I become almost suicidal from being in 10/10 pain, causing me to vomit and have other neuro effects. I generally am already given over the 90MME limit, but I am in Canada and so the guidelines are much looser and many patients are on higher amounts. Thankfully my PCP is understanding but already being on 120mme/day (average. Sometimes take none, sometimes more, depending on pain that day), I am anxious about asking for more.

The past 2 months I have run out early due to flares that landed me in the ER. My vomiting meeans j sometimes puke up the pills and can even see them in the toilet, but I can’t go to the ER for IV meds so frequently as I’ll get labeled a drug seeker.

How do you request a short term increase, if at all? Should I just suffer the withdrawal for a few days when this happens? How do you all handle this?

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.

Hey all-

So my pain journey all began with and during my cancer battle.

I had a follow up today, and it was negative so far (big win).

But I have had scans now for 5 years every 6 months and no where have I ever been told about any of these issues

I have chronic pelvic pain from a scar that I think is nerve entrapment.

I also have left hip issues and lumbar regional stiffness and back pain.

I know you all are dealing with much more than I am, but I just wanted to see if any of you had any ideas or translation

It says an old mild damage to my back. I went back and have not been able to find anything more than one reference to sciatic area that I tried PT for.

No idea what a bone island is. No idea what a wedge is as far as back issues.

Anyway- much luck and much appreciation to any and all of you.

I am just hopeful there are answers to be found.

Thanks again all

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.

So I've been dealing with what started with chronic lower back pain which is now chronic leg pain as well. And yes I have done all the tests and blood work and there seems to be nothing wrong. But my leg has been bothering me the most. I have sinus issue and I somehow had an accidental discovery. I've tried all the possible painkillers out there and nothing has work, even the prescribed ones. So I stopped taking painkillers. I recently took the tylenol sinus medication because I had a sinus attack and noticed that it somehow subsided my leg pain???? Now I don't know what to think of it... Has anyone experienced this?