h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have just recovered from another headache attack.
If you'd ask me how much they hurt I would say a lot and that would mean nothing to you. We can't compare pain. If you had my pain and I had yours for just a second neither of us may recuperate, or we might shake it off with a shrug. "What do you mean you're in pain?"

One of the problems those who suffer from fibromyalgia* have to face is a lower threashhold for pain. It hurts more for them, but that doesn't make their pain any less real.

An adult doesn't think much of a bee sting (unless he or she is allergic) but a child cries for hours, shaking with the effect of a pain too great to comprehend.

Are my headaches intolerable? Sometimes, but the comfort is that they always go away. Sooner or later. I don't cry out, I don't roll on the floor, I simply lie there and whimper. Sometimes i cry, but the tensing of muscles in my face and neck makes the headache worse. I don't cry because it hurts so much but because it hurts again, I am feeling sick again and again. The psychological effect of my headaches are just as bad as the headaches themselves. Hopelessness, withdrawal from normal life because I know I can't see a movie in a theatre through to the end, or stay at work a full day.

*http://www.fmnetnews.com/