Dealing with Chronic Pain

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Good morning all. I am new. I'm sorry it has taken me so long for my first post. I will start here.

My name is Rose. I'm 42, married with one daughter and 3 cats. I work full time and then some. I have had some kind of pain throughout my body as far back as 14 years old. I have been through many test only to find out "nothing" is wrong. I have had gastro problems all my life. The only formal diagnosis that I have are (slight) DDD in my upper spine, GERD, and Fibromyalgia. I have had pain in my back and chest for several years with no explanation. The aches throughout my body brought the Fibro diagnosis.

I have had panic attacks from 14 years old on and off. At that time, I thought I was just going crazy and going to die when I had them. I didn't know what they were. I finally learned what they were when I was 32. I was put on depression and anxiety medications and had cognitive therapy to work through them. I have them under some control now. I live with pain everyday. I was diagnosed with the Fibro just this past year and went to a Rheumatologist. She prescribed a med that helped get rid of the pain (Ultram), but the side effects made me stop taking it. Then she put me on Effexor and that gave me bad headaches. At this time I just take Advil as needed and Xanax as needed. I am very frustrated at times with this Fibro diagnosis.

Anyway, I am hoping to learn ways to deal with all these pains and to give and get support here. Thanks for letting me in.

Hi, Rose. Welcome to the family. And we are a family too, by virtue of everyone here knows what it means to hurt 24/7.

That's amazing you're getting my on a NSAID with all that pain. I suppose the cognative therapy helps, but still. In my mind, it's just a shame that your doctor quit trying pain meds on you when you didn't tolerate just two of them. There are many, many pain medications. Not all of them are narcotics, though many are. The thing is, you need a doctor willing to try them on you to see if you tollerate them.

I'm not a doctor, and I wouldn't pretend to tell them how to do their job, but it seems intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that if you got low doses of a given medication to start with, and then got increasingly larger doses until you reached a dose that took care of your pain, that sooner or later you might come across a medication that you not only tollerated, but that did the job.

Was that a run on sentence or what? But you see what I mean. I guess what I'm saying is, you might need to change doctors. That's not really unusual. We proabaly advise that to 75% of the people who come to this site. Their biggest problem is they have inadequate medical care. And I think you might too, even if you like your doc.

Welcome again. Over on the left is a lot of information on chronic pain. Let us know if you have any questions.

Lots of love and healing hugs,

Dan

Hi Dan. Thank you for the welcome and responding. I am actually going back to the Reumatologist this week.

I have a slight fear of trying new meds. Not sure why though.

I spent so long feeling like I was crazy and not believed by doctors that I hate looking for a new one. I do like my current general practitioner. She has referred me to many specialists and it seems she believes me and listens to me.

I'm sure you know how frustrating it is to have pain for so long with no relief. I have come to just expect it and just "deal" with it most of the time. I even feel like I am luckier than many other people which makes me feel bad that I even complain. Does that make sense? I pace myself and know my limits most of the time. My husband is pretty supportive now. He understands more than he used to.

Anyway, thanks again for the welcome and I will continue to look around at all the information in here.

Women are 3 times as prone to have GERD related problems then men, and some boys and girls can have it as early as 5 years old!

So I guess I should never complain having IBS at age 54. I have acid reflux and take a med to shut of fmy stomach acid pumps and take a "Good bacteria" med to balance the bacteria level in my stomach and colon.

Being able to get any pain symptoms under control is a goal of everyone who suffers.

Important Announcement The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
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