Chronic and Debilitating Pain #

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I have suffered from headaches ever since I became pregnant the first time 22 years ago. Supposedly I could and would probably outgrow these headaches “someday”. Well, I’m still waiting…that day has not come. I have been to see so many different doctors in the passing years to see if they could help me, if they had any different modalities, ideas, medicines, cures, etc., to suggest to me. Believe me they have had so many ideas, but nothing has really worked. Supposedly the headaches would calm down when my hormones calmed down. So since I’ve been flipped into menopause since my breast cancer and chemo, you’d think that would have been done, nope. Go figure?!

When I hear the commercials on the radio for different “Chronic Pain Centers”  I am very skeptical since I have tried everything from Chiropractic help to the needles of acupuncture. Nothing that I have tried has seemed to help my headaches. Maybe the Pain Centers will work for other pain, such as backaches, I don’t know. Call me a skeptic. I can’t help it, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

The one specialist I do see is a Neurologist for botox injections quarterly in my facial, neck and jaw muscles to relax them so I don’t tense them too much with the stress from the pain. This does seem to help somewhat as when I am late with the injections the pain does increase.

Other than that, I live with the pain, I just know when it is overcast the pain will be worse, so I need to rest, and try to put ice on my neck and head and lay down with pain killers. It is a fact of life I live with. I hate the real strong pain killers. They make me feel a little “loopy”, which isn’t my thing, yuck. I generally use Tylenol, aspirin, or Advil.

Sometimes you have to tough it out and live with it, it is life. Just saying. Unfortunate, but true.

I think this is too common a problem for women and unfortunately the medical field has not come up with any answers!