Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I gad a lumpectomy with lymph node removal, radiation and chemo. I wound up with an infection that lasted two years until they opened me up to the chest wall and had my partner stuff medicated gauze into the wound until it healed from the inside out. (I am also a diabetic.) The result of all of that trauma was chronic pain in my chest near the surgical area and way deep below - it seems to wrap around the left side of my chest - very sharo and acgt all at once. I hurt as I am writing this... I had no problem getting drugs - Fentanyl parches, liquid morphine, codine. They all messed my head up so much that I eventually stopped taking all of them except the codine - and that only a few times a week when I just can't stand it. I hate the idea of living my life in a big fog (forgetful, slow, clumsy... you know what I mean?) or hurting like hell ALL of the time. Is anyone trying to find effective pain relief that is not sedating? Whoever discovers that will be my hero. How do you cope with the disabilitating effects of pain meds? My old life is gone gone gone... Any advice or commiseration? IS there a real answer to this problem?