My husband has something for the pain now that isn't a pill
He'd say I'm making too much of this so I'm posting it while he's out.
Twelve years of back pain and the only thing anyone reliably offered was another prescription. He didn't want them and mostly didn't take them, which meant he mostly just had the pain. Every appointment ended in the same place and after a while he stopped raising it, which I think is what happens to a lot of people.
His new PCP put in a referral for massage therapy. I had to look up what that even meant on the VA side (a referral is just their word for a prescription). Community Care sorted it out and he's been going since spring.
He is not a man who reports on his feelings so my evidence is circumstantial. He's up and about earlier. He finally cleared out the garage, which had been eight months of being about to. He isn't doing the thing where he shifts in the chair all evening.
Mostly posting because I spent years assuming the only options were the ones being offered, and there was another one nobody had mentioned