I used to get this weird problem, where every now and again I got this horrific stabbing type pain in the right side of my ribs, that was worse when I moved and kind of felt like a bearhug at the same time..this would persist for a few hours then lessen up. The first time I got it I actually called an ambulance as the chest pain part scared me a bit, they ecg d me and that and said my chest was fine, though diagnosed something called costochondritus. I have since found out that was a misdiagnosis as the pains in the wronf place to be that..

Anyway, this went on months, with the pain coming on average once a month, nothing seemed to trigger it, it was just random. I dealt with it by..well just dealing with it when it happened.

However, after I had my son the pain was near constant. And increasing in intensity also. I was unable to even move for long periods of time due to it, again nothing seemed to trigger it, nothing seems to ease it..just nothing makes any difference. Was put on strong painkillers eventually while investigations were done. Eventually a consultant decided that the pain might be being cause by gallstones. So I was booked in for a removal. Was told the risks were slight, but various things could go wrong. Usual stuff for operations. However, there were complications.. my terrible luck would obviously make it so. It seemed it was only a small ish problem, that the surgeon had cu the wrong place and I had a bile leak. A few days of drains would see me fine. The pain of the drains, it was horrific. Again it hurt to even move at all and it felt like something was eating into my insides constantly..and this was ontop of the usual rib pain, which had not been budged at all by the op. Hospital decided I had been in too long so tried to discharge me..said the drain things could be cut and I could deal with them at home. I was in an absolutely ridiculous amount of pain at this point and absolutely was in no state to go home, I was in tears, unable to stand..my husband blatantly refused to take me home like that too. So they gave a shot of morphine and went to ask for a second opinion. Second doctor came and took one look at me, and sent me back down for emergency surgery. They had to reopen the holes and do a total washout apparently, unsure what else they did (only found out about the surgery while complaining about my treatment..as one of the reports said I had surgery aswell as a washout) but they did something! Turned out the whole time after the failed op..I had been leaking bile from another place the surgeon has ****ed up..and basically my body was drowning in it and being burnt all over..and that if I had not had the second opinion and got the required treatment, had I gone home like they were trying to pressure me to do (alls fine, the ains normal, just deal with it etc) I would have died there that night. Which is lovely.

To cut a very long story short..after all this was done with, I then still had the drain feeling in my chest a lot of the time, along with more burny tpe pain pretty much all over my ribcage. And the original pain too which they tried to write off as 'phantom pain' now as apparently people with gallbladder issues sometimes still gt the gallstone pain even after having no gallbladder, same as people can 'feel' legs that have been amputated and that. Eventually they did decide that it was never caused by me gallbladder mind..but now blatantly refuse to continue investigations into what it actually is. I am convinced it has to be omething to do with hormones, given the pain went way completely the whole time I was pregnant, then came back with a vegeance a month of so afterwards. Its the only thing that makes any sense to me, but they laugh at me for the suggestion :bored:

Basically, I now have both the stabbing/knifetwisting/bearhug type pain in my ribcage near constantly (sometimes get a few hours letup, where pain totally goes away for a bit, but it always comes back after some time..usually like 4-5 hours) along with the nerve damage from the failed operation. Honestly, the mix of them has me totally incapacitated a lot of the time. Medication helps somewhat, but it has its own issues, for example the pregablin I take for the nerve pain is quite effective, but it makes me weird and 'dreamy', quite unbalanced and also makes me sleepwalk! I take large amounts of palexia these days for the rib pain. I take 400mg a day, which according to my doctors is the equvialant of 200mg or morphine.

Which is odd. Because I was on 80mg a day of oramorph, then pain clinic started bull****ting on about how that was a dangerously high dose and started saying I needed to half it. At that stage I switched pain clinics as it was clear they were taking the piss tbh, thinking I could just half my pain meds and not have it effect my life in a very very negative way. Other pain clinic took me off oramorph completely and put me onto palexia. It appears, my GPs do not realise palexia is an opiate, as they have no problem prescribing huge doses..despite them also listening to the other pain clinic (I am convinced they were told their budget was cut so were trying to save cash, only thing that makes sense) who were saying that even 80mg a day of morphine was so so dangerous. However, in switching me from oramorph to palexia, they have more than doubled my morphine dose, from 80mg a day to 200mg! Which has helped considerably, but I am dreading when they click on to it and start taking this off me mind..

Another essay, but yeah. Pain issues still plague me like ****, even on 200mg morphine a day. Its quite effective for the rib pain mind..but only for short periods of time whilst its working, inbetween hours are still horrific. But luckily, I can usually work out how to go out with the kids and that. Work it around my morphine doses. Or sometimes, just take double dose while out..as long as its not a regular thing its fine. So I have a vague semblence of a life at the min, but only until the GP realises that they have me on a higher opiate dose than before D: