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.
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. 
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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. 
"Fortunately", the pain from my neck injury was so severe that it was taken seriously from the start.
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.
Wanda: Back injury at work
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).
I was medically managed, with opiates, sedatives, antidepressants, anti-inflammatory and antipsychotics, as progressively my brain liquefied and my body exploded to a massive 110kg with a left foot drop that would cause me to fall over without the slightest inkling that it was going to happen.
If it had not been for a physiotherapist eventually saying she could help no further I have little doubt that I would not be writing these words. I had an MRI scan (new at the time) and had a discogram followed by a multi-level decompression spinal fusion.
The first night post-op remains the most painful night of my life - inclusive of childbirth. The surgeon told me I had the worst back he had operated on in ten years and that the loss of feeling in my leg I was experiencing post-op may return in the coming years.
The doctor that was managing my pain was, and continues to be, a pain specialist and one of the major players in the medico-legal field.
All costs were born by my husband and me but most of all our children, as the cost and strain led to the breakdown of our marriage. My husband left and we fell into poverty. The $2500 in compensation from my employer (and a non-disclosure agreement) barely helped.
In returning to work at a later stage, I was again injured when a patient fell on me. A little wiser, I claimed compensation only to be strung along for six years by claims officers assuring me I did not require a solicitor. Once more I carried the cost, as there was no information provided or offered except for a verbal "cheer up" on the other end of the phone and a letter to tell me every couple of months that the voice had changed.
I tried to commit suicide on more than one occasion and would have been successful if not for my children and the love and compassion of a couple of people who came into our lives 13 years ago. We met through the foster care program, they as respite carers and me as a shattered person.
They just happened to be a doctor of social work and a doctor of psychology and what they provided was unconditional love, support and above all faith that I was not "a bad mother".
The one major change that occurred following the second recovery was I found that the insurer was obliged to cover a gym-swim program and again this information came via a physiotherapist. I also found I was entitled to home assistance - and then an occupational therapy assessment suggested I could "manage a sandwich bar".
The injured don't need platitudes or inappropriate job prospects. They need purpose and meaning in their life. They need assistance (support) to keep their families together and their children fed.
Maslow's theory of hierarchy needs to be adhered to. They don't need more drugs.
As my children grew older, I underwent an amazing spiritual event (not religious) and learned the power of positive thinking (they like to call it neurolinguistic programming these days). It gave me the confidence to manage my own care (not fund it) and dismiss the healthcare professionals that were riding the gravy train of insurance.
After returning to work as a nurse, I commenced my own advocacy company, created a program, worked as a director of nursing and my views were being sought for articles in the pharmacy industry, news (the Daily Telegraph) and on SBS radio.
This all came crashing down in 2006 when my car was rear-ended twice in close succession and I sustained a significant whiplash and a closed head injury.
Some months later in 2007 I was admitted to hospital with a severe exacerbation of my condition. After a 10-day admission, my GP received a letter from the treating physician with three words on it: "Pain, analgesia, physio".
I was discharged with a request for a follow-up in one month and a bag of drugs very similar to those cited in the death of Heath Ledger. In 1997, panadiene forte was the second most prescribed drug in Australia but we now seem to have switched to oxycontin (hillbilly heroin).
When are we going to learn? It is a contradiction to assess function while administering fog.
I have not written this tome as an exercise in doctor-bashing, nor to attack the various insurance organisations that I have had to deal with.
If the health economists and politicians are unable or unwilling to provide a more equitable system and medicine is to continue to be practiced in a defensive manner then perhaps hillbilly heroin is the answer for all of us, as there is no going back to Woodstock.
Finally, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi:
Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive, because your words become your behaviours.
Keep your behaviours positive, because your behaviours become your habits.
Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.