How do you explain it to people?

[irish eyes]

Irish Eyes,
My corneal specialist told me the same thing (as your doctor) almost every time I saw him that he sees patients so much worse off than me. It's so frustrating. I even told him not to tell me that again and he still did. I have recurrnt erosions on my rt eye rk scars and he's given up and says they'll never go away, so now I'm pursuing different contact lenses with an optometrist to try to hang onto hope that someday my eye will heal. It's tough forge ahead looking for a cure when my doctor has given up and discourages me if I go see him. He doesn't feel the pain. I have no choice to look for a cure.

So true. Why do they think this kind of comment makes us feel better?

On one occasion when this comparison arose, I snapped back "...I didn't know it was a competition....".

Too often, doctors' (and nurses') interpetation of our pain is filtered through bias and expectation.

Of course there is an emotional element to it; after long periods of time with chronic pain, there are frequently negative changes and few doctors seem to pick up on this. In my case, a few have done but they have been in the minority.