Every day, Megan Kuleas is in pain.
While she's at work in the public service. While she's catching up with girlfriends. While she's watching the Brumbies play. Or going to the local farmers' markets with her partner on the weekend. Every day.
Sometimes it is so bad, she faints.
"It can be a piercing, burning, sharp pain. I imagine it's the feeling you get if you are stabbed. And I get that across my pelvis," she said.
Megan, 33, is one of 1.8 million women in Australia living with chronic pain. In the last 15 years, she has been diagnosed with endometriosis, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, adenomyosis and a heart condition.
And she will be among many gathering outside Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday to call on the federal government to help women more easily manage that pain and live a full life.
The event is being organised by advocacy group Painaustralia, with chief executive officer Giulia Jones saying it was about bringing chronic pain "out of the shadows" and getting people to talk about it in the same matter-of-fact way as cancer or mental health.
"Women with chronic are the ones most likely to suffer in silence and that means they are living with more pain than they need to be," she said.
Mrs Jones said people in chronic pain were often dismissed because the broader community did not understand there was often no cure and the pain was not going away.
Painaustralia is asking the government to allow 10 subsidised allied health visits per year for people in chronic pain to incorporate help such as physiotherapy sessions or dietitian's advice into their pain management, in a bid to get more people with chronic pain physically active and less reliant on medication.
Mrs Jones said only one in 100 people in chronic pain receive multi-disciplinary care.
"That's ridiculous and it's because it's taboo," she said. "We're trying to bring it out of the shadows to allow people to claim their space in the health debate.
"There is often no cure for chronic pain and people with it can be told things like, 'I'm sick of hearing about your headaches'. You don't say that kind of thing to someone with cancer or mental health issues."
Megan Kuleas, meanwhile, manages her chronic pain with a permanent spinal cord stimulator implanted in her body and with medication. But, at times, she will forgo the medication because of its side effects including tiredness, nausea and lack of concentration.
"If there's something important happening at work, I'll really consider whether I'll take the medication," she said.
She is grateful for having friends and family who lift her up and a workplace that is supportive.
"I'm hoping my sharing my story I can help to start a conversation and raise awareness and encourage other women who are suffering and in similar situation to be heard," she said.
Mrs Jones said women with chronic pain or people who knew someone with chronic pain were encouraged to come to the lawns of Parliament House on Wednesday, September 13, between 8am and 8.45am.
