
Ask HN: New chronic pain condition, not near as effective an IC – how to handle - fallingtopieces
I posted this here:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;workplace.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;158853&#x2F;new-potentially-chronic-health-condition-means-i-may-not-be-the-same-engineer-as<p>The advice in the accepted answer is good, and the way I think I will proceed but I was wondering if there were any other experiences or recommendations from the HN community from people in HR (yes, I know, not necessarily sympathetic to my situation but rather the company&#x27;s) or other ICs who have faced similar situations.<p>MY GP and specialty doctors have told me it may be chronic pain without much to do other than pain management (NSAIDs, CBT,...). To be honest, even NSAIDs don&#x27;t do much. I&#x27;ve been depressed and anxious about my future. It&#x27;s likely not bad enough to qualify for disability, but honestly, I don&#x27;t want to go on disability. I was doing really well at a FAANG type company and I don&#x27;t want to lose what I&#x27;ve built for myself, however, if this physical pain and mental state continues, I will not be the engineer I was before.<p>I will say this, regardless of what happens to me, my eyes have been opened to what many people deal with and it sucks. Maybe I&#x27;m in the bargaining phase, however, if I get better or learn to deal with my condition effectively, I want to think I will do something to help others rather than looking out for just myself. That being said, I realize that looking out for myself is the point of this advise seeking post....
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billsimms
You might do a web search for Dr. David Hanscom and read some of his stuff to
see if you could apply any of that to your situation. I've never been to him,
but I've listened to him and read some of his stuff.

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pcvarmint
You might have sleep apnea. I woke up with pain, excessive daytime sleepiness,
and an inability to concentrate, for 3 years before being diagnosed.

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user_agent
Crap, I promised myself I'm going to take a break from commenting to get some
substantial work to be done, but this one is an important one.

Listen, @OP, never ever give up. I took me 7 years and a large pile of money
to figure out I have Fibromyalgia (which occurs not to be what people think it
is). My health was gradually worsening since I was 23 (now I'm 34 and in a
middle of a multi-year treatment, enjoying first fruits of thereof). Modern
medicine sucks if you have something non trivial to fight with. Doctors have
no time to invest in complicated diagnosis and custom approach, pharma
companies don't care about customers if these aren't coming in large
quantities, and an overall level of awareness in the society about how human
body should work is close to non-existent. You're on your own. The good news
is that patience will probably get you there. But you need to become a CEO of
your own healing process. There's no other way around it. No one is going to
take that burden from you.

I consider my case a pretty complicated one, this is why it took 7 years to
figure out. Meanwhile I became proficient in: neurology, cellular metabolism,
brain biology, and a couple more. That's not rocket science. Having time at
your hands you can learn whatever you want. If I was able in my condition, so
will you. You're going to see yourself how bad doctors are with connecting the
dots, and you'll (you have no choice) develop better models. That's going to
also help you in your future life. An ability of thinking clearly might be the
most valuable resource in the universe.

Don't be pessimistic. The chances that you have something that's incurable are
incredibly low. Officially Fibromyalgia is incurable. Guess what - it isn't.
Using a well proven method of eliminating invalid hypothesis, you're going to
be left with a handful you'd like to inspect more. This is how one by one
you're going to get to a valid diagnosis. From that point you can focus on
healing and rebuilding your life.

Definitely include Fibromyalgia (seems to be in line with the symptoms you've
described), CFS, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, etc in your research. Even if you
don't have any of those, people involved in that kind of communities are going
to help you to track down rare diseases you should inspect in detail. This
book has been fundamental in making a breakthrough in my case: "What Your
Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia: The Revolutionary Treatment That
Can Reverse the Disease", Dr. R. Paul St. Amand.

The only thing it takes for you to dig out of that hole is just one person
figuring it out and publishig results of his work. Even if he's alone and the
health problem an obscure one, you're going to find it, so you can reason
about it and test it. Again, the chance that you have something really
incurable is very, very low. You'd be probably dead by now if that would be
the case.

PS: Beware of diagnosis made by clueless medical practitioners. I've been
diagnosed 14 times with false positive things ranging from Parkinson to ME
before stumbling upon on the proper one. That's ridiculous. Doctors usually
can't even understand what does it mean if something is a proof of X in their
own field, so they constantly misinterpret data from scientific papers :( Not
even to mention that they have A LOT of trouble with not making statistical
errors.

I wish you luck, buddy. Now it's time to get to work. For both of us ;) Take
care.

I don't need to conclude, I guess, than instead of looking for a way around in
your work environment, all the resources should be put into finding a proper
diagnosis. PS2: There's no such thing as pain without a reason. Look for a
reason, not a BS explanation about how you should proceed from now on.
Solutions, not a blind acceptance of what seems to be inevitable.

~~~
fallingtopieces
Thank you for this, I've come to the beginning of the same conclusion. If I
read you right, this is a conclusion you need to come to fully by living it,
not giving up.

In any case, thanks for taking the time to comment.

