More Painful Downtime Than Expected - London, GB

30 y/o, no children, 5'7, 140 or so pounds, clothes size 10UK/US 6 (I don't weigh myself and usually just look at how my clothes fits).
I am definitely no stranger to cosmetic treatments. I have fillers and botox on a regular basis, had rhinoplasty in April 2014 and am a firm believer in "no pain no gain". I had vaser liposuction without anaesthesia in May 2013 on inner and outer thighs, flanks and back of the arms (it was cheaper for more areas) with the intention of coming back to do my stomach, but the whole experience was too painful for me to want to repeat it and I couldn't afford two weeks downtime with my current job. Since then I've been exercising regularly 3-5 times a week (heavy weights and cardio), eating healthy apart from episodes of bulimia that I've had since early 20s and that have been the reason I gained weight to start with. I've been steadily losing weight all year and I would even say the weight kept coming off the "liposuction'd" areas more eagerly than my arms (front) and stomach that started to bother me more by comparison with thinner legs. I came across an article about "Aqualyx" fat-dissolving injections, went to a clinic for a consultation and learned about Coolsculpting instead. It seems to be advertised as a "no-downtime non-invasive" easy-breezy treatment, almost like having a massage after work. I did read lots of reviews on here and saw that while some people were in pain, others weren't at all, so I proceeded thinking I will be one of the lucky ones (but I wasn't). I went to two clinics, in one of them the doctor said he could "coolsculpt" absolutely anything off me and encouraged me to buy as many areas as I could, which really put me off. A nurse in the other clinic seemed a bit more realistic and said I only had enough "grabbable fat" on my stomach and it wouldn't work on any other area. I preferred this approach and booked the procedure in two weeks' time.

Still remembering my awfully painful vaser lipo experience, I took painkillers and a tranquilizer pill just before Coolsculpting and slept through the procedure. Two small cups were used on my lower stomach and the first five minutes on each side were almost unbearably painful, I wanted to jump off the couch and run away but the nurse encouraged me to wait it out. At the end she said I had a really impressive block of frozen fat and could expect good results. I left the clinic feeling absolutely normal and for the next three days I wasn't in much discomfort, I did my usual treadmill interval running (wearing spanx just in case) but my stomach felt like a big bruise and looked really swollen, so I had to choose the most maternity-like clothes to wear, trousers were out of the question and compression garments helped somewhat. The pain started on day 4, first off as pins and needles, on day five I was in lots of pain (many describe it like being stabbed in the stomach every few seconds, plus the itchy-sunburn feeling) and started taking non-prescription painkillers which don't seem to make much difference, day six painkillers and ice pack, it's day seven now and I can't even leave the house, ice pack is on all the time but at least the swelling seems to have subsided. I will wait until my final result to say if it was worth it or not but I do think the "no downtime" claims made by clinics should be a little more realistic. At the moment I just wish the pain would go away, it's the fact that it's so constant that makes it really bad.

This is pretty close to how my stomach looked before the procedure, it tightens up after ice pack quite a bit.

My belly button is extremely itchy and the constant little stabs under the skin are still very bad and non-stop. When I press on the stomach it feels very painful, more painful than the bruise pain I had the first three days, more like internal organ pain. Letting cats near it is out of question!
I found some codeine left from my rhinoplasty and took it just to see if it works, but biggest relief still comes from icing, as soon as the ice pack is off the pain is back. I am extremely annoyed I have missed at least two of my usual gym days already, that can't be helping the fat loss!

No matter the results, I am definitely not having this treatment done again, this has been one miserable week and an awful weekend. I am a very active person usually and being unable to do anything adds to the misery. My pain from coolsculpting so far is worse than pain I had from liposuction without anaesthesia and is very close to discomfort after rhinoplasty. But at least with other procedures pain decreases gradually after day 1 and the pain I'm having right now has been increasing daily, which is just so weird it makes me anxious.
Have been researching more about when I could expect the pain to stop and found a very long thread on here about pain after coolsculpting, it was a little bit comforting to discover there are lots of people with the same experience.
http://www.realself.com/review/coolsculpting-pain-after-cool-sculpting#comments

As of yesterday, the pain has been gradually getting duller but I still need an ice pack to fall asleep.

I am probably still recovering as my stomach gets itchy from time to time but I am noticing a very small reduction: the sort of change if I did a detox for a week, but it's very subtle and not noticeable to anyone but me. I'm sure if I had a couple more sessions I could see great improvement, shame my recovery was so painful I will never do coolsculpting again.
Will take some pictures if the change becomes a little more noticeable

I definitely see results from the procedure - I'd say the 20% reduction claims were pretty accurate for me. This has also motivated me to up my abs exercise and not overeat. The stomach is by no means perfect but feels great and liberating to be wearing some of my more clingy clothes without worrying about the stomach so much. I am very gutted that my recovery was so painful, otherwise I'd already be booking one session on upper and one more on lower tummy, pretty sure that would make it close to perfect, with those visible abs outlines that I'd love to have. Maybe I'll risk it once the neurological pain is forgotten or if I can obtain those pain killers they don't prescribe in UK.
Unfortunately, for the recovery pain alone I can't say coolsculpting was worth it for me but as for the results, I am impressed the claims have actually matched the reality, unlike so many other procedures.