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).
When 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.
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.
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.
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.
My injury happened over two days – August 30-31, 2001 – when I was asked to reorganise the office's new filing system.
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 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. 
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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. 
"Fortunately", the pain from my neck injury was so severe that it was taken seriously from the start.
Breast cancer is a diagnosis heard all too often these days at 13,000 diagnoses a year in Australia.
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.
My problems started in the early 1980s with the introduction of computers in most public service departments.In 1986,
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.
Harry Perkins, son of Olympic champion swimmer and Painaustralia Director Kieren Perkins OAM, was diagnosed with chronic migraine at the tender age of eleven.
Our Role
| "Up to 80 percent of people living with chronic pain are missing out on treatment that could improve their health and quality of life." - National Pain Strategy, 2010 |
Management of pain, especially chronic pain, is one of the most seriously neglected areas of healthcare in Australia, especially in regional and remote communities.
The National Pain Strategy, supported by more than 150 healthcare and consumer organisations, provides a blueprint for addressing this situation.
A key role for Painaustralia is to advocate for wider access to appropriate treatment for pain, and more effective help for people living with pain, which includes improvements in training and education of healthcare professionals.
We liaise with Federal and State Government representatives as appropriate, prepare submissions in relation to government policies and programs, and work with consumer organisations to address issues affecting people living with pain.
The Issues
- There is significant unmet demand for pain services which will worsen as the population ages. Currently, fewer than one in ten of the 3.2 million people who suffer chronic pain – such as back pain or persistent pain after surgery – get access to effective treatment.
- Patients face long waiting times to access multidisciplinary services in public hospitals - frequently more than one year, resulting in a deterioration in quality of life and psychological wellbeing, and long term disability with reduction in the capacity to return to work. (See Waiting in Pain Project – Australian Pain Society 2010)
- Nationally, there are only 24 registered pain specialist training positions, whilst Palliative Care has twice this number (50 nationally) and Psychiatry has 102. Funding is urgently needed for more training positions. In addition, there are only 20 accredited training units in public hospitals across the country.
- Funding for specialist pain clinics in major teaching hospitals has been patchy and precarious. All of the nine clinics in NSW have been forced to reduce services significantly in recent years. A number of units have been threatened with closure, including those at Westmead, Lismore and St George Hospitals.
- Significant service gaps exist across patient groups including vulnerable groups – older people, children, indigenous people, cancer patients, mental health patients, women with pelvic pain.
- Services vary widely through the country – between states and within states, between metropolitan and regional and remote areas and between different types of patients.
- Training resources are inadequate to meet both current and future demand, resulting in long waiting times for many patients. This situation is not the fault of medical colleges. The Faculty of Pain Medicine and ANZCA are willing and able to train more doctors. The missing link is funded positions for interns, prevocational doctors and trainees in our public and private hospitals. These doctors, in turn, will be in a position to help train other health professionals.
- Australia is at the forefront internationally in developing this specialist area through the Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPM), part of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA). The Faculty – a world first – includes five medical specialties: anaesthetists, surgeons, psychiatrists, physicians and specialists in rehabilitative medicine.
- There appears to be minimal coverage by private health insurers of ambulatory multidisciplinary pain management. Current reimbursement and insurance arrangements tend to favour more expensive invasive procedures (often with limited evidence of effectiveness) over effective less invasive, less expensive cognitive behavioural programs.
- The Federal Minister for Health and Ageing recognised pain medicine as an independent medical speciality in 2005, resulting in specific items included in the Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) in 2006 for medical practitioners recognised as a Fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine. However, the limitations imposed fail to promote an appropriate service model based on an interdisciplinary approach and strong links to the primary care level in order to encourage continuing management of less complex cases in a primary care setting. For example, item numbers exist for services provided by psychologists when referred by GPs and psychiatrists. However, there is currently no rebate for a direct referral from a pain medicine specialist to a psychologist with special expertise in the management of chronic pain, which would facilitate the development of multidisciplinary management in private practice, promote greater efficiency within the health system, and be of great benefit to patients who would no longer have to make an additional visit to a GP to obtain such a referral.