You can help. People with chronic pain need and deserve a comprehensive platform to report pain mistreatment, under-treatment, abandonment and other experiences in real time. The National Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Association is proud to sponsor America's Pain Report. Please submit your report.
1 in 3 Americans suffers from life-altering, chronic pain.
Our vision is simple but transformative: Report the truth about pain in America and make it accessible to the public and media.
Help us transform chronic pain disease prevention, care, education and research in America. Your voice matters. Together we make a difference.
It is very devastating to live with pain all the time; I never thought I had to go through torture like this. I had a really good health until I was around 45 yrs old, now I am 51 and I feel like 80. I really do not like to take pills because I always have side effects.
Doctors are so afraid of losing their license that they refuse to write prescriptions for pain medication, even though I've always used my prescriptions as directed.
My area is in a serious shortage of doctors in general and even worse when it comes to specialists. I'm desperate for pain relief.
I've seen five doctors for fibromyalgia in my area. Every one assumed that because of my age that I must be a drug seeker instead of seeing me who I am.
I have suffered from crippling pain for years, not in just one place on my body but multiple. I went to every specialist I could think of that would help me find the answer to the reason for my pain, and time and time again they would run their tests, treat me as a guinea pig for alternative medications to help, then when the pain didn't stop they would shove me out the door to a different doctor. Just because I have a diagnoses now does not mean I am any closer to being pain free or having manageable pain, it just means that now I know what is causing it and that if I want assistance I will have to fight every step of the way against doctors, pharmacist and the government to get any quality of life.
As a pharmacist, I constantly dealt with chronic pain patients who were relying on pain medications to provide just an ounce of pain relief to improve their quality of life. I was taught as a pharmacist to be very diligent in making sure that any controlled substance prescriptions were for legitimate pain conditions. Now that I am on the other side of the fence and am a pain sufferer myself, I see all the scrutiny that pain patients must endure from the medical world just to get legitimate medications which provide pain relief and improve their quality of life. I am afraid that the recent CDC guidelines which were passed to curtail the use of controlled substances by chronic pain patients could force me to defend my actions in seeking pain relief. Chronic pain patients like myself suffering from various medical conditions should not be denied the medications necessary to improve our qualities of life.
