By Crystal Lindell 

My fiancé and I both have chronic pain. Which means we both spend a lot of money trying to manage it. 

Later today, he will drive an hour and a half each way to see his pain doctor so that they can drug test him in person.  He’s the only doctor in the region who will take new pain patients, so he’s the doctor my fiancé goes to, despite the long drive.

The doctor doesn't take my fiancé’s insurance though, so he will have to pay for the appointment the same way he pays for every monthly appointment with this doctor: with $160 cash. 

And when he gets his medication refill in a few days, that will also have to be paid for with cash at the pharmacy, because his insurance won’t cover prescriptions from doctors who don’t take the insurance. So that’s another $53. 

Aside from the direct costs of that whole ordeal, there’s also the in-direct costs like gas in the car, time away from being able to work on our (very) small online business, and the energy he’ll have to spend dealing with the drive and the stress. 

While he doesn’t have to see this doctor in-person every month, he does have to pay the full price for the appointment every 30 days, along with the prescription. So we have to find a way to basically pay for the equivalent of a car payment every month just so he can have the pain medication he needs to function. 

It’s just one of the ways living with chronic pain gets expensive fast, and also stays expensive. 

There’s the obvious stuff people think of, like the cost of both of us seeing doctors and filling prescriptions. But there’s also the less obvious stuff, like the regular purchases of bulk ibuprofen, Excedrin, and of course antacids for the heartburn caused by the other medications. 

And then there’s the more expensive stuff like the closet full of orthopedic braces, crutches, and walking aids.

There's also the $100/month we spend on kratom powder, which is the only over-the-counter substance that actually helps either of us when our very limited supply of prescription pain meds aren’t enough. And with the current swing in temperatures here in northern Illinois, there are a LOT of days when our limited pain meds aren’t enough. 

We also buy Gatorade every week to take the kratom with, because we’ve found it’s the best and cheapest option to use to get the dirt-like powder down. 

It all adds up so fast, especially with seemingly unlimited inflation. And it ends up being money that we can’t use to improve our lives in other ways, like building savings, having a wedding, or paying off debt. 

Speaking of debt, there’s also the added aspect of all the medical debt I’ve racked up over the last decade, despite having insurance for most of that time. It has essentially destroyed my credit, making it that much harder to secure housing and transportation. 

From the outside, it’s easy to assume that our money troubles must be caused by either our inherent laziness or our inability to budget correctly. But when you have health issues, your money is not the same. It is both harder to get and harder to keep. 

All of these costs are non-negotiable. We can’t just skip his doctor appointment because we have unexpected car problems to pay for. We can’t go without kratom as a trade off if we have unexpected veterinary bills for one of our cats. 

There are a lot of ways that society could be set up differently to help people with chronic pain and chronic illness. Things like universal health care, universal basic income, and expanded public transportation options would go a long way.

I would hope the fact that I’m a human being makes me worthy of social supports like that, but if that’s not enough, there are plenty of selfish reasons for other people to support expanded government programs.

While you may assume that because you don’t need some of these support systems yet, then you never will, you’d be wise to reconsider. Because that’s the thing about chronic illness: If you live long enough, eventually you’ll get sick too. 

And when you do, you’ll find out just how chronically expensive chronic illness really is.