My 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.
6 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'.
I 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).
"Fortunately", the pain from my neck injury was so severe that it was taken seriously from the start.
September 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.
It 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.
Before 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.
I 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. 
I 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. 
Harry Perkins, son of Olympic champion swimmer and Painaustralia Director Kieren Perkins OAM, was diagnosed with chronic migraine at the tender age of eleven.
That 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.
My problems started in the early 1980s with the introduction of computers in most public service departments.In 1986,
My injury happened over two days – August 30-31, 2001 – when I was asked to reorganise the office's new filing system.
I 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.
It 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.
I 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.
As 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.
In 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.
Breast cancer is a diagnosis heard all too often these days at 13,000 diagnoses a year in Australia.
I'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
Trevor: Injured lifting a child
I 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.
At the time I went through all the usual procedures – x-rays, CTs, MRIs – and I started seeing a pain specialist who tried several things without success. In the end I was taking morphine to manage the pain.
After four years on morphine, I decided I was sick of always feeling doped up, so I simply stopped taking it one day. Apparently I was one of those lucky people who hadn't formed a dependency.
From 2001 to 2009 I pretty much self-managed my pain with nothing stronger then Panadeine Forte. But the pain was always there in the background, nagging at me.
Almost all of my social life stopped. I had to keep working but I stopped everything else. I felt like I could manage my pain by not doing anything. What I didn't take into account was the effect that pain was having on me mentally.
I've always considered myself to be a typical Aussie bloke: pain is just something you put up with (without whinging) and mental health and feelings are taboo subjects. My mental health deteriorated because of my lack of social activity and with that, my pain levels increased, but I didn't make the connection between them.
I was put on antidepressants and sent to a psychologist. I also restarted the process of seeing surgeons because I was convinced that my neck must have deteriorated to the point where maybe someone would fix it – but I was wrong.
Instead, I was referred to a specialist who changed my prescriptions and referred me on to the pain management program at St Vincent's Hospital in Brisbane. My employer kindly offered to pay for me to attend.
I attended the course in November 2009 and I can't speak highly enough of it. The staff was fantastic and I would recommend the course to anyone with chronic pain. While I was at the course, I was diagnosed with a condition known as thoracic outlet syndrome and am now receiving treatment.
In the past six months, my life has turned around. I've gone from feeling that there's no hope and that I'd be better off dead, to actually having a future.
I've accepted that I'm going to have chronic neck and arm pain for the rest of my life. The only thing that matters now is how I manage that pain. This was a huge and difficult realisation for me to make, but one that's absolutely necessary for anyone who has chronic pain.
I've been lucky to have had some really good outside support. Once I actually learnt to explain what's going on, the support of my wife Karyn, my friends, family, employer and colleagues has also been invaluable. Everyone knows what pain is and once I learnt to talk about what's happening, then everyone could understand what it's like.
The medical profession has also come a long way in the past 12 years in pain research and treatment. With appropriate recognition and funding I'm sure it will continue to progress.
Pain is real. It's a double-edged sword that attacks both physically and mentally. It's at best annoying and at worst life destroying.
For me, accepting that chronic pain is part of my life was half the battle. Once I understood that, then practical outside help was of great benefit. I still have pain every day but I no longer let it fully dominate my life. I have my life back and now I want to help others get their lives back too.