> A lot of people (doctors included) don't seem to believe that you can be in severe pain, while sitting and conversing with them - "he seems fine to me!". Tha

> A lot of people (doctors included) don't seem to believe that you can be in severe pain, while sitting and conversing with them - "he seems fine to me!". That's very familiar. "I feel like I'm being stabbed in the eye" "But you seen fine" "It's been doing that for the last two years; at some point I just stopped reacting to it" > I'll add as well that I'm one of the "lucky" ones for whom a diagnostic test (skin biopsy) has shown concrete evidence that doctors believe in Having visible evidence definitely seems to help - my dermatologist seemed to be sceptical that my dermatographic urticaria[1] was as bad as I was saying given the dose of antihistamines I was on. She did a challenge test, and her first comment was words to the effect of "Huh, that _is_ severe". She ended up doubling the does of antihistamines. The "hidden" symptoms are much more of an uphill battle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatographic_urticaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatographic_urticaria