I’ve suffered for years with chronic knee pain after an injury at age 20, and was poo-poo’ed by doctors and accused of being “anxious” when the pain continued. I lived with it without so much as an Advil, hobbling around, unable to enter beauty pageants or do certain jobs I would have loved to due to the footwear requirements that set my knee off. I then began to suffer from diffuse body pain, with the same dismissive reaction from doctors. I tried medicine: physio, dietary changes, vitamins, reiki, orthotics, meditation, etc. helped for a while. Then, this summer, I began to suffer excruciating leg pain, and after injuring my back, I suddenly became bedridden with stabbing, burning pain and muscle spasms. Complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia are diagnoses, along with a rare movement disorder called DRD. Your blog has been the best thing I’ve found researching pain. Even with these diagnoses, the medical community STILL treats you like more of a mental patient, eg pain is in your head. Pain programs are useless, CBT is bullshit at a certain level of pain. It’s no more in your head than Parkinson’s is (oh look, low dopamine a neurotransmitter). Pain is real I hope everyone of these doctors gets the illnesses they treat so lightly! Thanks for giving a voice to the experience of so many.
Thankyou
Hi Crystal, love your writing style, keep it up!
I’ve suffered for years with chronic knee pain after an injury at age 20, and was poo-poo’ed by doctors and accused of being “anxious” when the pain continued. I lived with it without so much as an Advil, hobbling around, unable to enter beauty pageants or do certain jobs I would have loved to due to the footwear requirements that set my knee off. I then began to suffer from diffuse body pain, with the same dismissive reaction from doctors. I tried medicine: physio, dietary changes, vitamins, reiki, orthotics, meditation, etc. helped for a while. Then, this summer, I began to suffer excruciating leg pain, and after injuring my back, I suddenly became bedridden with stabbing, burning pain and muscle spasms. Complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia are diagnoses, along with a rare movement disorder called DRD. Your blog has been the best thing I’ve found researching pain. Even with these diagnoses, the medical community STILL treats you like more of a mental patient, eg pain is in your head. Pain programs are useless, CBT is bullshit at a certain level of pain. It’s no more in your head than Parkinson’s is (oh look, low dopamine a neurotransmitter). Pain is real I hope everyone of these doctors gets the illnesses they treat so lightly! Thanks for giving a voice to the experience of so many.