Welcome to 2009 and our first carnival of the new year.  For new readers, our monthly pain-blog carnivals highlight the best articles from many blogs, all gathered together for your reading enjoyment.  I hope you like this month’s selections – there are several particularly spectacular posts!  If you’re interested in submitting an article from your own website/blog, see the instructions at the end of this post.  I look forward to your contributions!

Chronic Babe shares a wonderful post, How I Embrace Optimism…  and You Can, Too.  When you live with chronic illness, it’s easy to lose your sense of optimism.  Jenni presents 5 ways to keep your optimistic side strong.

Being Chronically Ill Is A Pill describes her evolution as a person who deals with chronic illness on a daily basis in, My Most Important Day.

In Sickness and In Health looks at how communication with our partners can suffer when we have chronic illness.  When our needs don’t get met, it becomes easier to blame.  The MBTI, a psychological profile assessment tool, can help us understand our differences and talk about them constructively.

Dean Moyer at The Back Pain Blog shares some tips on how to deal with winter in a way that can make Neck Pain and the Cold seem a little less daunting.  And there’s even snacks!

CRPS/RSD A Better Life provides an educational post about clinical trials for CRPS (RSD).  It’s great to see so much research being undertaken.

HealthSkills looks at what people mean when they have setbacks and flare-ups, and say, “Oh no!  Here we go again.”  Exploring this can reveal the meaning of pain to the person.

Chronic Illness Pain Support shares some realistic ways to celebrate yourself in the new year, despite set backs - including ones that come from chronic illness.   Lisa’s article is Celebrating Yourself in 2009.

What can you say to others to help tham understand your experience with illness?  Working With Chronic Illness gives us a script in One Thing I’d Like You  Know About Living with a Chronic Illness.

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Thanks to our contributors for all the good reading!

The February Pain-Blog Carnival will be Wed, February 25

Deadline for submissions:  Friday, February 20

Send in your submissions here.

Thanks to Denube for the photo.  And for more fun reading, head over to Chronic Babe, who’s hosting the medical-blog carnival “Grand Rounds” this week.