'Hanging in there' is about all I can do. I try to keep myself motivated. I find if I sit and think about the pain or allow it to take priority it is as if I'm encouraging the pain. Please tell Dean that he is not the only one battling with the "Black Dog" of depression. I go there regularly. Pain is a strange beast. If someone has a sore leg they limp and you can see their pain. But a damn headache is so very unique, individual and isolating. I find some people trying to empathize with statements like 'oh headaches, yea I get headaches occasionally' and I want to say 'Not headaches like these ya don't' or 'headaches occasionally, oh that'd be nice' but I bite my tongue and just agree, when what I'd like to do is grab the person, shake the daylights out of them and tell them "YOU HAVE NO BLOODY IDEA!!!" But you can't do that so you internalise it, which can be even more destructive. This is why I find I need to keep myself occupied. I can stir myself into such a mess if I just sit and think. Just awful. I can do this by myself, the judgement of others just gets me there quicker. We had a family gathering and my nieces husband was giving me a hard time because I had a headache "It can't be that bad". Two weeks later and he's off work because of a sore leg. For some reason he didn't appreciate me telling him "it can't be that bad", then I reminded him of his own statements weeks earlier. He did not like that, but he hasn't made any statements since, so maybe a dose of his own medicine had the desired effect.
Dean, you do learn to REALLY enjoy and cherish the good times while you can, because only you truly know how bad the BAD times can be. Good luck with the NS or doctors in general, some of them can be extremely difficult to work with, so if you find a good one, grab hold and don't let go.
Let us know how you get on.
Merl1n