Kelli: Autoimmune Disease

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.

Juliet: Inherited pain condition

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.

Marie: Cycling accidents

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.

Jill: Breast cancer pain

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

Mandy:

Injury caused by phone

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

Danielle: Childhood pain

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.

Symantha: Chronic migraines

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.

Peter: Accident at work

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.

Eliza*: The right diagnosis changed my life

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.

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.
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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).

Maria: Stress-induced migraine

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.

Elizabeth: Managing pain

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.
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Daniel: Car Accident

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.

Janet: Crushed by a tree

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.

Gabrielle*: Chronic migraine

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.

Peter: Struck by lightning

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.

Katia: Sport injury

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.

Jacqueline: Hip Pain

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.

Deb: Reaching under a bed

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.

Margaret: Hurt Shopping

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.

Aileen: Hurt lifting files

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

Olivia: Endometriosis

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

I was diagnosed with endometriosis.

Renée: Car accident

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.

Gerard:

Sneeze led to neck pain

"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.

Elisabeth: Herniated disc

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.

Dave: Doctor with 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

Charmian: Pacing

My pain journey began in 1986 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'.

Harry: Pain in Children

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