I have been dealing with chronic pain and all that goes with it since 2000 and if I had it to do over again first of all I would never have confided in family and friends about the meds, I have been labeled a Junkie, fake, (but never failed a drug test or pill count) you name it from the ones that are supposed to love me! Before my surgery to get fixed (what a joke) I lost a lot of weight on a low carb diet, used a treadmill by using my pain meds to allow it and the endorphins were heavenly and let me decrease my doses and although it was still there I would not accept it and fought every step of the way and let a neuro surgeon talk me into a level 3 fusion that went south by his mistakes and now I would give it all to go back to where I was because now I am unable to do any exercise, and lost my hope, faith and dreams of being a nurse again and let myself slide into a very dark place, and I did it all, printed out letter to normal people and passed out to all concerned, have been in therapy for years so I guess what I am saying is just do whatever makes you feel good, makeup, perm, color, clothes, online shopping, I also play poker on my space with free chips since I am in bed 20 hours day and some days more! I stayed in denial much too long and ended up much worse. If you can't get support from friends or family then get it here, and never give up hope because sometimes its all we have, and getting pets were the best thing I ever did for myself, I don't think I would be here today if I did not have my little babys that love me no matter what! Just do some searches on here as I am sure there is tons of great info already there and you can read it and bump it up and it may help you or someone else!
Good luck with your journey, I hope you have more good days then bad!