Chronic pain Acceptance

So sorry to hear you're dealing with this. I struggled with severe chronic migraines for years and I was in a position pretty similar to yours where nothing was giving me full relief and my doctors were having trouble treating them. My neurologist eventually recognized I was having really serious anxiety problems and once I started treating those (therapy & medication) my headaches started tapering down and becoming more manageable. Learning not to "push back" against the pain and trying not to be anxious about them (because worrying and getting tense made them worse) was really helpful, and my psychiatrist managed to find me one of the antidepressants that also work on migraines. I still get headaches relatively frequently but they are much less severe and they're no longer stopping me from being able to live my life. I really really hope you find relief, too. Don't give up hope, it took me like four years to get to a better place but when I did it was so, so worth it. It's never too late.

@Katieee97 hi, I searched chronic pain and your post appeared. I hope you are doing better now after 6 years. me as well started to have persistent headache from 10 years. it was worsened by time untill I now have physical, cognitive, and psychological symptoms that mostly look like chronic fatigue syndrome. acceptance is hard. I find it to be a superpower. now after so long I learned that reality of life. I am no longer that naive person who thinks life will go as planned. and of course I learned what is actually important in life. just not suffering and that my days become tolerable is more than enough. this is impossible to feel at severe pain times. hope your days are tolerable. and everyother person suffering chronic pain.

@Katieee97 I know this is way too late but who knows, maybe you'll read this anyhow...

Yes, chronic pain is a b***h. Acceptance is never easy. It took the rest of the year for me to process the fact after my diagnosis in '17. Even after that, I still have a day or two of depression every so often because the idea of accepting my being crippled for the rest of my life is just too much. The only cure for this kind of thing is time, & time often does an imperfect job.

If you do read this & haven't gotten one yet, one thing I can say is that a diagnosis is better overall than perpetually struggling with the unknown. Keep trying to find a doctor who looks for what the others have missed, because that's how rare illnesses are figured out. And a rare illness is almost certainly what you have.

I can tell you 100% that I know exactly how you feel. I have debilitating chronic headaches 24/7. Mine started when I was 17 and I have suffered for 10 years. I hid it in the beginning too. I thought that it was better to hide it than tell those around me. I realized in the last 2 years how wrong that assumption was. I was hiding my pain to make others feel better, it did nothing for me.

I try to keep myself distracted to cope. I try coloring, finding extra projects at work, cleaning at home. (When I can. Sometimes the pain is too much)

Keep hanging on