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.
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.
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.
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.
"Fortunately", the pain from my neck injury was so severe that it was taken seriously from the start.
My problems started in the early 1980s with the introduction of computers in most public service departments.In 1986,
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.
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).
My injury happened over two days – August 30-31, 2001 – when I was asked to reorganise the office's new filing system.
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. 
Breast cancer is a diagnosis heard all too often these days at 13,000 diagnoses a year in Australia.
Harry Perkins, son of Olympic champion swimmer and Painaustralia Director Kieren Perkins OAM, was diagnosed with chronic migraine at the tender age of eleven.
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 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 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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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Chronic pain is one of those things you read about, study, discuss with colleagues and ponder solutions for as a surgeon, but no matter how diligent or knowledgeable, one does not even begin to fathom the circumstance that is chronic pain until experienced first-hand.
Pain is one of those intangibles; you can't see it, you can't measure it and, without comment from the sufferer, it remains hidden and elusive. I thought I knew pain from the experiences of broken bones and other injuries, I thought I understood pain spending my career caring for the sick and injured, and then chronic pain came to visit and stayed, and all my past experiences seemed so insignificant, and my knowledge so inadequate.
Chronic pain proved to be different, it's continuous and unremitting nature challenged my psyche, mocked my considered strengths, and upended my confidence. The realisation that each morning pain will be the first experience on awakening and the last experience at the end of the day dominated my thoughts, imposed on all plans and restricted all activities.
Seeing chronic pain from the perspective of a sufferer and the perspective of my former career as a surgeon has been interesting. The dichotomy of understanding chronic pain, and the difficulty in communicating the nature, extent and imposition of the condition have given me a different, if not unique, approach to it.
The key to my survival and the driving force which keeps me going has not been some inner strength or belief system, has not been from the drugs, although they have been helpful, but from outside factors. My family and friends have been supportive, patient and understanding, and, perhaps most important, have been tolerant of me with my mood swings, newly found idiosyncrasies and the occasions when my mouth comments before my brain has engaged. And then, of course, the doctors and therapists who have examined, treated, goaded, cajoled, and tolerated me. Being a fellow doctor has been a challenge for some of them as it has for me and I will be eternally grateful to those who didn't throw me in the "too hard" basket.
As a medical practitioner my private life was kept just that. Appearances are important, patient confidence comes in part from a perception of the individual, their morality and professionalism but rarely from their mortality. So we keep our personal circumstances in the shadows, hidden away from our patients, and sometimes even from ourselves so that we can function efficiently in the role as medical carer. Working in regional centres where anonymity, especially as a member of the medical fraternity, was virtually impossible, dictated that my personal circumstances were kept behind closed doors, and now, no longer confined by the necessity of my career.
I still find it difficult to discuss my circumstances with others. I often ask myself whether this has been a good or bad thing. Many people deal well with adversity by discussing and sharing it with others but this is not a formula which works for all, and has not been a technique I have found personally effective. Perhaps I am wrong and this opportunity to expose my condition, warts and all so to speak, may have a therapeutic or cathartic effect for me. It's certainly been an interesting exercise.