VA Women’s Health encourages women Veterans to talk to their VA provider about their chronic pain. You can work with your provider to create an individualized pain management plan that incorporates mental and physical health strategies that allow you to get back to doing the things you love.
Your individualized pain management plan
Chronic pain is a lingering pain that interferes with women Veterans’ daily lives. As many as 75% of women Veterans accessing VA care experience chronic pain. Migraine and back pain are two of the top service-connected conditions for women Veterans. Many also experience chronic neck pain, pelvic pain, arthritis, joint problems, and fibromyalgia, among others.
Women Veterans may experience more barriers to seeking care for chronic pain, including stigma, lack of social support, higher levels of responsibility for home and child-care duties, and limited transportation. Women frequently see their provider with multiple co-occurring pain conditions, and pain of unclear etiology, which can make diagnosis and treatment challenging.
High rates of trauma in women with pain can make them reluctant to ask for specialty care and many feel as if specialists, who predominantly treat men, are not equipped to care for them. Because women with pain are at risk of having their pain written off as psychological, they can feel stigmatized and distrustful of the system.
Not always curable, but manageable
Limited social support and the stress of juggling home, dependent care, and employment or education demands can make it hard to prioritize pain self-management or appointments.
Although chronic pain is often not fully curable, with help, support, and an optimal care plan, you can learn to better manage your pain, so you have more time and energy for the things you love.
Work with your VA primary care provider to determine what combination of pain management therapies best fit your individual circumstances and needs.
In addition to comprehensive primary care and women’s health services, VA has many resources to help women Veterans learn about available chronic pain services.
Links to chronic pain services
- VA Women’s Health – Chronic Pain: Information and resources to help Veterans learn about the wide range of chronic pain symptoms and management options VA offers women Veterans.
- VA Women’s Health – Chronic Pelvic Pain: Information and resources to help women Veterans learn about chronic pelvic pain and the treatment options available at VA.
- VHA Directive 1137: Directive allowing VA to offer Veterans massage as a treatment.
- She Wears the Boots – Chronic Pain in Women Veterans: Podcast discussing chronic pain specifically in women Veterans and the treatment options available at VA.
- She Wears the Boots – The Importance of Pelvic Health: Podcast episode discussing pelvic health in women Veterans and treatment options as well as potential causes of pelvic pain.
- VA Whole Health: Information and resources to help Veterans implement integrated health practices like mindfulness, meditation, and yoga, which can help Veterans manage their chronic pain.
- VA News – Chronic Pain: Archive of feature stories about chronic pain and the wide array of treatments available at VA, includes articles on cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, acupuncture, physical therapy, and more.
If you have chronic pain, speak with your VA health care provider to make a personalized chronic pain management plan. You can also call or text the Women Veterans Call Center at 1-855-829-6636.
For more information on health care services for women Veterans, visit: https://www.womenshealth.va.gov/.
Topics in this story
More Stories
Bob Jesse Award celebrates the achievements of a VA employee and a team or department that exemplifies innovative practices within VA.
This month's Center for Women Veterans Book Corner author is Navy Veteran Kimberly Henry, who served as a Cryptologic Technician and Sexual Assault Victim Advocate from 2009-2019. She created "Warrior's Path to Healing: A 12-Week Empowerment Journal for Women Veterans."
The Medical Foster Home program offers Veterans an alternative to nursing homes.
My mother, who is a fully disabled vet suffers from chronic pain. She was treated with opiate medication for years leading up to and after spinal surgery. It should be noted she is a kidney transplant recipient so she is limited on what medications she can safely take. The VA cut her off two of her medications, the opiate and one to help treat anxiety. Two medications she had taken for years and NEVER misused. No tapering, no mental or physical support, just cut her off and wished her luck.
Going cold turkey off the opiate was cruel, going cold turkey off the other was unethical and medically dangerous. So dangerous we found her later passed out on the bathroom floor. No telling how long she laid there and she was so touch and go that the ED staff was calling me and my sister to inquire if there was a DNR in place. She lived, but her health was utterly destroyed and she will now spend the remainder of her days in a nursing facility. This was a 70 year old woman who was just trying to live out the remainder of her days in a bit of comfort and had two medications that she took as prescribed to help in that endeavor and you cut her off! Even now, with her being in a nursing facility you quibble over the opiate she gets there as if she is running to the streets to sell it or is going to misuse it and OD. Absolutely disgusting! I would have expected better of you.
I am not former military, but my husband was. Back problems aren’t just “treated” and “that was sufficient,” don’t go away by themselves, and the V.A. doctors know this and have lied to you, IMO. They know better. This makes ME angry, and I am not the one they are lying to. If you still have V.A. healthcare, you might want to go back, depending on how you are feeling. You are telling my story of not being able to stand for more than 5 minutes, etc. I have had four lumbar spinal fusions fusing 5 levels and one sacral spinal fusion so far. I am fused from L2-S1 of my lumbar spine, and my sacrum is fused on the left side. I believe most of my problems were a side effect of a breast cancer recurrence prevention drug that I took for 5 years after my surgery and chemo. Whatever it is from, good luck. Back problems are no fun. You have my empathy.
I hate how VA marks my pain to mental health! I have been fighting for help for over 13+ years with my back I’ve done everything!
I truly wish that VA could walk in my shoes for just 1 days to understand my level of pain is off the charts!
Please call me.I am needing advice.
Most doctors, even females, don’t take into account that I have kids to take care of and have to work full-time. They routinely try to impose treatments that won’t work because of either side effects or time commitment. I get dismissed a lot because I can’t do the treatments they want and ask for other options. I imagine a lot of other women experience this same issue.
I read these articles but have a hard time believing. My last appt. Was a disaster. Refills not called in. Tests not ordered. No wonder I hate going
I have had chronic pain in my lower left side of my back can’t stand for more than 5 minutes without having to move around. File a claim on it and other issue I had before and after departing military was told I was treated and that was sufficient but, I still hurt regardless of the treatment years ago.
I struggle with all of these issues. I am blessed and got compasited. Everyday life is still a struggle. I will not give up.
Ive found qi gong, taichi very helpful managing my pain. Currently using Classical Stretch by Miranda Esmonde White on pbs & youtube to be able to move with more ease and less pain. Also cbd cream is helpful on bad days.
Thank you. I will be practicing with her.
VA is not helpful when it comes to linking all together I’m tired of the lies. There is a lot of dropped care in this system of no one cares.
I fell while in the military and putting a 60 rucksack on a 90 lb frame did not help me later in life it caused what they call degerate spinal disease. They dismissed it on my claim as being treated why do I still feel it daily.
Mental and physical strategies to manage pain. My guess is the VA is proposing zero options for pain medication proven to manage pain and instead offer only unreliable non evidence based nonsense to females because females pain is not taken seriously. I wish the VA would stop treating women with psychologically abusive slop and give them medications that the rest of people with real medical care and real doctors have access to.
Dani, preventing narcotic dependence is not a bad thing at all. There is a body of evidence on that subject.
Dani, you are 100% correct. The VA solution for women vets is “pain clinic”. I tried all the self-help-feel good garbage, and nothing works.
Then the last resort for them is to send you to a phyc. Dr. that just laughs and says “you will not be able to do what you use to do, so take phyc. meds. or live with it.
VA stop wasting money and people’s time so you can employ people just to be employed……….