Living with Chronic pain

So I'm going to change this blog up. Instead of complaining about my pain on Facebook, I'm going to blog about it.
  I'm hoping by blogging about it, one I don't wear my friends out with my complaints and two maybe find others that might be having the same struggles that I have.

To start I need to start with my story.

Almost 4 years ago, it was a Sunday night and my family went out to dinner with my in laws. During the dinner I got a sharp, strong pain in my right side. I made it through dinner and we came home. As the evening went on the pain continued to get worse. Finally I told my husband I needed to go to the hospital because I thought my appendix was going to burst.
At the hospital they couldn't find anything wrong with me and sent me home with some pain killers. The pain continued to get worse and I went to my doctor on that Monday. She looked me over and agreed with me that something was probably wrong with my appendix because of the sever pain. She sent me straight back to the hospital. Once again they did a CT scan and found nothing wrong. They told me it was probably a ruptured cyst and that I would be better in a few days. They gave me more pain killers and sent me home.

Wednesday the pain is still so incredible that I can barely move and I go back to my doctor. She looks at my side, sees I have a few small red bumps. She diagnoses me with Shingles, gives me an anti viral and says I should be better in a few weeks.

Well the rash clears up, but the pain never goes away. I am diagnosed with PHN and told the pain should go away in about six months. So we try a Gabapentin to try to ease the pain. We try different doses, change up the times of day I took it, this goes on for about 7 months. While some days are better than others I'm still in tremendous pain. The medicine makes me groggy and unfocused. We are now past the 6 month mark and so the doctor sends me on.

I get referred to a pain management doctor. He changes me to Lyrica. This at first seems to help but my body adjusts very quickly to it and I have to up the dose. While on the Lyrica we try an epidural. It worked for 3 hours and then wore off and pain came back stronger. So then we try a ablation of the nerve that is damaged. I am in the small percentage that makes the nerve more sensitive instead of killing it. So we up my Lyrica more. This causes major depression issues and so I take myself off the medicine cold turkey. This makes my pain and moods crazy for about 3 weeks. This whole process takes another 6 months. At this point the pain doctor says there is nothing more he can do for me and dismisses me from his care.

I go back to my general doctor, we try a few antidepressants, and a few pain killers. All help slightly but not enough that I can wear normal pants, sleep on my right side or work out.  We try this for about a year and a half. (at this point I have now be in constant pain for 2 years)

We then decide to try another pain doctor. With this doctor we try another round of anti seizure  drugs that do absolutely nothing. We then try another epidural that does nothing. They then say the have the cure!! I need a spinal cord stimulator to send shock waves to the nerve to mess up the signal to the brain. They are confident that this will work and I will be able to wear normal pants, sleep on my side and work out.
There were many steps you have to take to get a spinal cord stimulator and I go through all of them, but it takes awhile. Finally I have done everything. I set up my appointment for the trail. 2 days before the trail I'm told insurance said no, and they have to fight it.
2 months later insurance is a hard no. Doctors tell me to change insurance, so I do. We try a new insurance. Once again the answer is NO. This is now end of year 3 almost to year 4.

I got the final NO yesterday. So now I have to figure out what I am going to do.
This blog is going to be my journey of accepting the pain instead of trying to ignore it, and how I learn to let go of the dreams I have held onto for the last 4 years.