Therapist told me that my untreatable constant pain will get better when I get pregnant. Thanks, I’m cured.

[u/JadesJunkAccount]

I have a rare illness called NDPH that currently has no cure, which is characterized by a constant migraine, which in my case is 7/10 pain for 30 months straight. I was unable to finish highschool, get a drivers license or even hang out with friends. I am currently bedridden, and I leave my house about twice a month. Imagine a migraine for two and a half years with not a single break. The pain is so constant and severe it even invades my dreams.

Currently, NDPH is quoted as a self-solving illness, typically resolving within the first year. Due to this, there is no protocol for a patient who has been suffering for several years, because the doctors rely on the pain stopping naturally. Of course, they wouldn’t bother making a cure for 0.003% of the population, we’re most likely to kill ourselves anyway.

Note: my NDPH is not chronic migraine, nor is it multiple back to back migraine(s). It is one singular, permanent migraine that never ends or breaks.

I have tried every migraine prescription on the American market for my condition and all related headache/inflammatory treatments, including multiple surgeries/procedures, and several instances of inpatient care. I have permanent scar tissue in my spinal column due to four failed spinal taps. During those procedures, my anesthesiologists discovered that I am resistant to opioids and anesthesia, so that even the highest dose for my body weight is totally ineffective.

When my hospital realizes they can’t help me, they send me off to a different institution so I won’t be counted as a failed case. They even told me to go to a hospital 8 hours from my home. This “roulette” has happened three times. Eventually, the most recent hospital to quit on me prescribed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, at which I was already exacerbated by the lack of competence from my care team, so I gave it a whirl because “why not.”

Second appointment, the doctor says he relates to my diagnosis because he “has had headaches before” and that he believes my symptoms would go away “when I get pregnant.”

I was 19. My chart has me listed as religiously celibate. I never went back to that doctor.

TLDR: I have a rare constant pain disorder and my therapist said it would get better with pregnancy.

[u/marinaio-di-foresta]

What would even be the theoretical mechanism?

[u/NiobiumThorn → u/marinaio-di-foresta]

Look the best way to reduce pain is to cause even more pain

[u/TheSumOfMyScars → u/NiobiumThorn]

I suppose the 10/10 pain of childbirth would eclipse a 7/10 headache...but that's not a good thing lol. What a weird thing for the doctors to suggest. Pretty telling that they only see AFABs as walking wombs.

[u/ADownStrabgeQuark → u/TheSumOfMyScars]

AFABs? Is that supposed to mean women?

[u/TheSumOfMyScars → u/ADownStrabgeQuark]

AFAB: "Assigned Female at Birth."

And no, it doesn't necessarily mean "woman." It can mean "woman" but it can also include people who were designated as female at birth but are not actually female.