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.
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.
"Fortunately", the pain from my neck injury was so severe that it was taken seriously from the start.
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 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).
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.
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 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. 
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. 
My problems started in the early 1980s with the introduction of computers in most public service departments.In 1986,
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.
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.
My injury happened over two days – August 30-31, 2001 – when I was asked to reorganise the office's new filing system.
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 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 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. 
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
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.
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.
Jill: Breast cancer pain
Breast cancer is a diagnosis heard all too often these days at 13,000 diagnoses a year in Australia.
However, with our marvellous early detection programs and medical expertise, we allow ourselves to be propelled along a trajectory directed by others because we know there have been so many before us who have gone down that track towards a success result.
It begins with the diagnosis, then the referrals to breast surgeons, plastic surgeons, radiologist and oncologists the breast cancer and cancer councils. We are so lucky the women say...and we are until we experience something just a little different.
My story began with a bilateral mastectomy three years and two weeks ago. I had a reconstruction with expanders implanted at that time.
From the first post-operative awareness it was different. I thought that I had a constriction bandage around my chest but the surgeons assured me there was no such thing...it was the first presence of the "crush" pain.
My post-op recovery was uneventful except for my level of discomfort which began to intensify when I began my chemotherapy treatment. I asked my surgeons and my oncologist if this was normal and when it would subside and I was put through multiple tests including cardiac and respiratory, that would hopefully provide an answer. Everything came back as normal...but it wasn't!
There was nothing to identify the cause of my pain. It shouldn't be there!
The pain was exacerbated by every chemo treatment and it became so incapacitating that I could not walk to the bathroom without excruciating pain reverberating in my chest.
I tried so hard to push against this ever-increasing and disabling, relentless pain. I was prescribed opiates, codeine-laden pain killers, anti-inflammatory tablets, antibiotics with a host of other medications to address the side effects of those.
Each day was agony – breathing, moving, existing - BUT my cancer was removed. I was lucky - and still no-one could identify why I felt like I had barbed wire tightly wound around my chest, but I did.
Was I mad? My oncologist said "this is bizarre" and had no comfort to offer except that he did not have any other patients who complained of this type of pain.
One morning, six months after surgery and two months after I had finished the chemo sessions as I was lying in bed at home I heard Professor Michael Cousins from the Royal North Shore Hospital Pain Management Clinic interviewed on ABC radio.
He spoke of the impact of chronic pain and the cost to our society. I knew how true that was. Then he interviewed a lady who described her post breast surgery chest pain that exactly matched my own description. I was not mad! I was not the only one!
Following a call to the pain clinic, I was given an appointment to meet with Professor Cousins and so began "my return to life". His expertise, treatment regime, acceptance, support and guidance along with his integrated specialist health care team allowed me to have significant pain relief, to gradually increase my activity and within two months, to return to employment (albeit now only part-time).
"The Prof" greatly assisted my recovery from my second reconstructive operation 18 months ago by providing prophylactic, preventative pain treatment so as not to re-start the pain cycle again.
I owe "the Prof" nothing less than my life.
Due to the progress I have made, for the last 10 months I have been able to control the pain without medication. This I attribute to the excellent treatment by "The Prof" along with the assistance during the last year of an allied health treatment (by another master in his field) of Bowen and Emmett therapy given about every six weeks to decreases muscular tension and pain. I am so lucky!
I needed to be my own advocate and "the squeaky wheel that gets the oil" so that my cry could be heard above the drone of "that is bizarre"!
Women especially do suffer in silence and this has to stop even if one feels they are the lone voice.
I have so much gratitude for those who listened, those who have such a level of excellence in their field and those that support their loved ones in pain.