Chronic Pain and upset

Hi,

I have chronic pain. I've had bad regular headaches for over 15years. 4 months ago it became even more intense and didn't go away. I have not had a moment in 4months where I haven't been in pain, it's just the severity that varies.
I spent New Years and Christmas in bed in agony.
The doctor had me on Tramadol and was giving me botox. I was still in agony, but with Tramadol it eases it a little bit.
I've only just seen the Neurologist yesterday and he told me that it is chronic pain, that my brainstem is over-firing. I have to come off the tramadol and then visit him again and go from there. He's prescribed me with some other pills to go on to, but did warn me that it's going to get bad. So in the next month it's going to be even worse. and then he will see what to do next.
I have been in agony, I've missed bits of work and other times been sitting at my desk with tears streaming down my face because of how intense the pain gets. and now I've got some hard weeks ahead of me. I don't know what to do about work, I don't know how I'm going to get through it. He said we can't eliminate it but find a way to try and manage it.
I'm very upset because of how much I've missed out on already, and I'm getting married in 3months time. There's still so much to do for the wedding but I'm so limited, I'm in bed all the time.
So I was just hoping that there would be some people out there who could give me some advice?

Thanks Daesin

I've had a look through the forum but most of what I happened to read made me feel worse.
I will try meditation, I know it's worse the more worked up and active I am.
I've only really spoken to my partner about it and my parents. I don't know how to explain it to my friends without them judging me.
Thank you so much for responding. I feel so lost and sad. My partner is great, he does understand and he looks after me. But he does get frustrated on how limited we are on weekends and so on. We had New Year's Eve planned to drink on out balcony and watch fireworks just the two of us. We live in the city but are moving this year. He was on his own all night, I was in bed. I'm sorry I'm using this like a therapy session. I'm just so upset. Maybe I feel betters later.

Thank you again

Echpain, hello & welcome to the forum. So sorry to read that you are suffering with this headache situation.

After reading your post it sounds like your dr may be able to help you manage these headaches, I sure hope so. At least that can give you some hope. Pain can be debilitating. Learning good coping skills can go a long way when it comes to dealing with pain.

We do have a migraine forum here at Healing Well & you may want to also pop over there & visit with those people there too. That forum is not limited to migraines either. A lot of us visit more than one forum here.

Anyway, I wanted to pop on & say hello & welcome aboard.

Hi, and welcome to the forum at HW. It's good to get to know you.

I don't know much about migraines, but just out of curiosity, have you had imaging done, like MRIs, CTs, etc.? I haven't heard of a diagnosis of chronic pain being given out after 4 months (although from what I've read, most definitions of CP say pain that lasts longer than 3-6 months) with just a Dr's say-so, although of course I'm sure we don't know your whole story.

There's a lot to read about how our brains adapt to CP and start firing signals long after they 'should' have stopped, but surprisingly, there isn't TOO much research that's been done, although the field is expanding rapidly.

One thing I know for sure is that we all understand what you're going through, in terms of the pain changing your life and restricting your activities, and how significant others can have a hard time dealing with it, too, because they're used to us being one way then we transform into someone else. Often, CP patients learn to adjust to the new normal, which may be about a 6-7ish on the pain scale, each day, so we don't "look" like we're in pain, necessarily.

HUGS to you, and good luck.

H/A can be a funny thing -good that you are seeing a Neurologist and having all the test ran to rule out issues that can be seen on scan. If he doesn't find anything you might want to look into allergy testing-if you haven't already had that done. Often H/A can be related to allergy-especially foods-It depends on a lot of factors too. usually and sadly narcotic pain medication can cause more problems from rebound issues than not so it good that your doctor isn't going down that road at this time.

What all test have you had and results