The High Cost of Pain

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Your Stories

Eliza*: The right diagnosis changed my life

neural image web

Prior to becoming a chronic pain sufferer, that is, someone who experiences daily pain for three months or more, I had led a busy life. Post pain, it has been devastating to have to adjust to a vastly different life.

 

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Aileen: Hurt lifting files

aileenMy injury happened over two days – August 30-31, 2001 – when I was asked to reorganise the office's new filing system.

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Wanda: Back injury at work

wandaI first incurred a serious back injury at work in 1985. It was not able to be evidence-based for five years (at the time of surgery).

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Trevor: Injured lifting a child

trevorI injured my neck in 1993 while attending a Scout Jamboree in Canada as a carer for a child with cerebral palsy.My pain symptoms didn't really show up until 1997 when I started getting lots of neck and arm pain.
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Katia: Sport injury

katiaI was nine years old when I damaged the ligaments in my left leg in a hurdling accident.After a year of treatment my leg hadn't healed – in fact the pain had worsened and I was diagnosed with chronic regional pain syndrome.

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Marie: Cycling accidents

marieI had two major cycling accidents in the 1980s which caused a spinal fracture and severe whiplash.I quickly got over the accidents and was fine until the early 1990s when I started to have migraines. This gradually progressed to daily migraines by 1996.

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Maria: Stress-induced migraine

MariaThornton

I've suffered migraine for about 12 years. Originally I would have a migraine

almost every day, so now I consider myself lucky to get just two a week.

 

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Jacqueline: Hip Pain

Jacqueline Emmett

One day in Year 8 I was playing with some classmates when I hurt my hip. Stuck on the ground and unable to get up, I was taken to hospital by ambulance, but doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me.

 

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Mandy:

Injury caused by phone

mandyMy problems started in the early 1980s with the introduction of computers in most public service departments.In 1986,

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Kelli: Autoimmune Disease

neural image webWhen I was 25, I was living life to the full. Then, literally overnight, I became ill. It was 15 April 1998, a date I will never forget, when I woke up in severe pain.  I had to crawl on my elbows and knees to go to the bathroom. I had pain in all my joints – it even hurt to breathe.

 

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Elisabeth: Herniated disc

ElisabethNonnenmacher

For the past four years I've been struggling to cope with a herniated disc condition,

which has not improved much, despite me taking positive action and trying to manage it. The condition gives me severe back pain, which I feel almost every day and every night.

 

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Daniel: Car Accident

danielBefore my accident, about six years ago, I worked at a prestige car dealership in Brisbane. This work was physically demanding as well as being quite social. We all had to get on well as it could be quite a pressured environment and humour often kept us going.

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Symantha: Chronic migraines

samAs a chronic migraine sufferer I've lived with pain since I was a small child. With the help of sub-occipital electrodes and an implanted pulse generator (IPG implant) I can now manage my daily pain and rely less on heavy medications.

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Peter: Struck by lightning

peterMy first taste of pain and injury was when I was only three years old.We had a car accident and I had my lower lumbar joints damaged as well as whiplash injuries to my neck. No one knew this at the time, though, and by the time I was nine I was having X-rays on my back to find out why I was in so much pain.

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Charmian: Pacing

My pain journey began in 198Charmian6 when I was 17. Unrelated to any incident, I began to experience extreme back pain. I later discovered it was a degenerative disease with no cure, but at the time I thought it could just be 'fixed'.

 

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Olivia: Endometriosis

OliviaHamilton

I've suffered bad period pain since I was 15, but it wasn't until my late 20s when

I was diagnosed with endometriosis.

 

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Gerard:

Sneeze led to neck pain

gerard"Fortunately", the pain from my neck injury was so severe that it was taken seriously from the start.

I have chronic pain from several sources but the most serious and debilitating resulted from a herniated disc at C6-7 caused by, of all things, a coughing spasm.

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Jill: Breast cancer pain

jillBreast cancer is a diagnosis heard all too often these days at 13,000 diagnoses a year in Australia.

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Danielle: Childhood pain

danielleIt was during a long jump attempt at my school's athletics try-outs when I was nine that I first hurt myself.As usual, I ran and jumped but as I hit the sand I felt pain in what I thought was my ankle.

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Dave: Doctor with pain

daveI'd survived the traumas of a major motor car accident, the ignominity of a prostatectomy, and the despair and exasperation of three separate cancers and their harsh therapies, but nothing had prepared me for the greatest challenge of my life, dealing with chronic pain

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Renée: Car accident

reneeIn 1962 at the age of 21, Renée was involved in a serious car accident that kept her in an English hospital - in a 40-bed geriatric ward - for nearly two years.

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Harry: Pain in Children

Harry PerkinsHarry Perkins, son of Olympic champion swimmer and Painaustralia Director Kieren Perkins OAM, was diagnosed with chronic migraine at the tender age of eleven.

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Deb: Reaching under a bed

debI woke up one morning in 1988 with a sore back.As the pain continued to increase, I consulted my general practitioner who referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. After some tests, I was told that there were no problems and that the pain should go away. It didn't.

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Juliet: Inherited pain condition

neural image web

My pain symptoms started when my menstrual cycle began, at the age of 12. I had blinding pain in my pelvic region, sweating and nausea associated with menstruation. As I got older I also experienced intense back pain, and I would often blackout.

 

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Gabrielle*: Chronic migraine

neural image web

I suffer from chronic severe migraine. It started 20 years ago and became a daily

occurrence in 1996, from the time I had two cycling accidents.

 

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Elizabeth: Managing pain

elizabethI was an advisory teacher when I suffered a spinal injury in 2007 that landed me in a Brisbane hospital emergency department.Thanks to a neurosurgeon, I regained the use of my left leg and the crushing pain eased.
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Janet: Crushed by a tree

janetSeptember 23, 2006 was a beautiful, still, sunny autumn day.I was in the UK to visit my elderly mother and other family members and had taken the train to London to visit a friend.

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Peter: Accident at work

PeterPanandfamilyIt happened on 28 August 2008 at 8.28am. Everything after that is a bit of a blur, but the moment the accident happened will be stuck in my memory forever.

 

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Margaret: Hurt Shopping

margaretThat Friday in June 1990 began like any other Friday – two adults, three teenagers, family pets, all heading out. I was totally unaware that this was the day "Super Mum" would die and life as I knew it would be over.

 

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Peter: Accident at work

PeterPanandfamilyIt happened on 28 August 2008 at 8.28am. Everything after that is a bit of a blur, but the moment the accident happened will be stuck in my memory forever.

 

I was 34 and I was working at a metal recycling factory. We were unloading some steel and I tripped over something on the ground and feel backwards. The steel we were unloading weighted about 100 kilos, and it hit me in the back.

 

I managed to get up, walked three paces, and collapsed in a heap. I had smashed a disc and a vertebrate in my lower back, and the extent of injury was severe. It was painful to walk, and it was even too painful to get out of bed, so I spent the next month or two flat on my back.

 

I had two rounds of back surgery. The first one was eight months after my injury, and by that time my nerves had fused to the bones in my spine, so some had to be severed. As a result, today I have areas of numbness and no reflexes at all in my left leg, along with a severe degree of pain in my leg and lower back, every minute of every day.

 

For several years I took painkillers to manage the pain. I started with Panadeine Forte, but the pain got worse so I was prescribed Gabapentin, and that was how the roller coaster began. In the end, I was on a daily mix of Gabapentin, Rivitrel and Endone, the dosages of which would have to be increased periodically to provide the same level of relief.

 

However, the medication had very negative side effects. I was constantly depressed and anxious, and had no desire to socialise, shutting out family and friends. I was in this zombie-like state for at least two years, until I began to realise medication was not the answer.

 

My children were just five and one when the accident happened and I haven't been able to pick them up since. I can't carry more than two kilos. I missed out on two of my children's birthday celebrations because I was stuck in bed. And my depression was putting a lot of strain on my marriage.

 

I had been looking for a magic potion, but realised my condition was here to stay, and I had to do something about it. I started by making a decision to get off the medication.

 

In October 2010 I participated in a three-week intensive pain management program at RNSH called ADAPT. Through my hard work and the support of the facilitators, I was weaned off all medication within the first week. At the same time, I was given the understanding and tools to manage my pain in a different way.

 

Today, I manage my pain through regular meditation, plenty of stretches, and daily walks. For me ADAPT was a God-send; my enthusiasm for life is back.

 

I will never be able to return to my former life, or the sports that I loved, or work full-time. I still have pain every day. But I can cope with it now. Some days it can take me an hour to get out of bed, but I want to do it.

 

I'm driven to keep improving myself and I'd like to get back to part-time work, but for now I'm happy to be a stay-at-home dad, and spend time with my children. I also happen to be a great cook, so my wife's pretty happy about that!

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