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Though I'm sure most here can attest to, those who've never experienced that kind of pain will too often categorize it as "whining." I worked in hospitals and, of all of the populations I saw in hospitals, I think it was those with chronic pain who got the least understanding & empathy from medical staff. There were always issues around drug use for those who had to rely on opioids to dull pain -- I could hear the antipathy in the voices & approach to the some patients in some medical professionals. And it most certainly affected care and psychological status. Not only were people having to deal with constant, horrific pain but also with too many hostile environments, which of course made the pain worse!
As I've said elsewhere, I have little chronic pain associated with MS and what pain I have, i so far have been able to alleviate pretty easily. (My pain comes from spasms......heat REALLY helps.....as does tiny amounts and infrequent use of medical cannabis!) I recently had surgery to remove a large ovarian tumor (it turned out to be "low-malignant" with zero spread....I got VERY lucky.....OvCa killed Mom) -- so I had the total hysterectomy, etc. I remember Mom taking lots of percocet after her surgery, which I think actually made it worse for her -- it's constipating, which is one of the problems after that surgery and increasing that increases the pain, IMO. I took a grand total of 3 of the 45 percocets prescribed after my surgery. Like you, I hate the way they make me feel. And I didn't want to make the pain worse by making the constipation worse, which is where a large portion of my pain came from. BUT twice it was truly counterproductive not to take the meds! I was in eye-popping pain and, despite being pretty damn good at using behavioral techniques to lessen pain, it just wasn't enough. In both instances, I really didn't do myself any favors by trying to wait it out -- I think the pain just plain got worse than it had to be and I went from in pain to in agony!
My heart truly goes out to those in chronic pain. The only other time I had any true pain was going back to work the day after foot surgery, which was against my doc's advice. Within short order, I was in agony and couldn't focus on anything I was doing! And when I think that people have to put up with that day in and day out, sometimes all over their bodies......OMG, I really do have heartfelt admiration for the degrees to which people are able to keep on keeping on, even when that means just getting out of bed, going to PT and coming home to crawl back into bed! That's a tremendous amount when you're in that kind of pain! It affects every aspect of life -- how can that be a little thing you never "whine" about? Talking and venting is a good thing.
I was rip-roaring PISSED when I was hospitalized after the surgery. After doing fine after the surgery.....I apparently was lucid and, according to my bro (who sweetly came to stay at my house and take care of my dogs while I was in the hospital) was raring to go then, bingo, suddenly had two days of delirium when I wasn't even oriented to self!
(Actually, there's a funny story here. On the 3rd day, I was coming out of the delirium and the surgeon came in to check on me. My docs don't know that I check on ALL of their voter registrations! One can do that here -- i always check to see which party my docs are affiliated with. 
Well, this guy is a Republican. So on the 3rd day, I still couldn't tell him when my birthday is BUT I accurately told him who the president is. And then I said, "And I have bad news for you, doc, I helped get him elected!" So THAT I remembered.....I not only remembered Obama but which Party the doc was affiliated with.!)
Okay, back to the delirium. They called in a neuro consult and this absolute dimwit decided it was due to a benzodiazepine withdrawal! She noted in my chart that I take clonazepam for restless legs. What the total moron didn't bother to do was check how often I take it, which would have taken the extra step of one damn phone call! When I worked in medicine, I did that ROUTINELY! But no, that was too much for too-stupid-to-be-a-neurologist! What she and the rest of the docs failed to note was the one difference between time A and time B was that I FELL! That they documented, but then when this delirium followed, they attributed it to benzo withdrawal! I clearly had a mild TBI (traumatic brain injury) from hitting my head in the fall. (I'd had one previous mild TBI and 25 years of an MS laden brain -- that'd do it!.) My last clonazepam prescription of 30 pills with no refills was from January of 2011 and I still have 8 left.....meaning I had taken all of 22 clonazepam over the course of 10 months at that point! I'm well aware of the dangers of benzo dependency and am thus VERY cautious -- I only take them when the RL becomes truly unbearable (I also get tremors, which the clonazepam also helps....I RARELY take it for tremors.)
So all of that is now in my med record! Arrrrrgggghhhh! I wrote a SCATHING 3 page letter excoriating the neurologist & the docs for their stupidity and made sure I documented for my med record my LACK of benzo usage! But that's the kind of thing that gets in a med record and then docs look at patients askance when they need to prescribe anything potentially addictive. I've seen it happen a million times. So glad you have a doc who works appropriately with you! IMO, it's smart to be very careful with opioid medications -- one does build a dependency, necessitating more and more. Caution is wise!
Sorry for the long response and delay -- it's actually been sitting here for 2 days as I interrupt myself. Poor attention & concentration is one of my MS symptoms and it seems to have been accentuated by the hospital TBI. It's all fun, fun, fun in chronic illness world! At least, that's what ReTHUGS would have people think -- I'm just lazy and should curl up and die, right? Gotta love 'em. Yeah, I was lazy when I worked half-time while getting my Ph.D. in full-time grad school.....all while I had crippling fatigue from MS! 
