Each Monday, we’ll look at ways to cope well with pain and how to get yourself to use helpful techniques regularly.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
Last week we looked at stress management in general.  As you remember, most people report that stress increases their pain levels.  So it’s important to both prevent and decrease […]

Each Monday, we’ll look at ways to cope well with pain and how to get yourself to use helpful techniques regularly.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
So far, we’ve looked at relaxation skills and guided imagery as ways to decrease pain.  For most people, stress increases their pain levels.  So it’s important to both prevent […]

Each Monday, we’ll look at ways to cope well with pain and how to get yourself to use helpful techniques regularly.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
Last week we looked at our first guided imagery exercise.  Guided imagery helps reduce pain through the use of suggestion.  An image is paired with your pain, and by […]

Last month, the DEA approved a change for prescribing what are called “schedule-II” medications.  These are “controlled substances,” which include narcotics as well as stimulants for ADD.  They’re labeled “controlled,” as they have the potential for addiction.
In the past, patients needed to go monthly to their doctor’s office for an appointment for these medications to be […]

Each Monday, we’ll look at ways to cope well with pain and how to get yourself to use helpful techniques regularly.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
So far we’ve looked at relaxation skills – breathing, relaxation and visualization – that work to decrease pain by helping you be more relaxed.  Guided imagery - while it’s also a […]

Wouldn’t a friend who themselves knew what you were going through with chronic pain be comforting?
Wouldn’t a support who you found inspirational be encouraging?
Sister Janice McGrane shares with us such resources in her book Saints To Lean On:  Spiritual Companions for Illness and Disability.  I recently interviewed her about her own experience with the challenges and positives […]

Where can you get great products to help with pain?  The Chronic Pain Store is a website which recently asked if I’d try several of their products.  What a find!
The Chronic Pain Store offers many great products, with the advantage of all being at 1 website.  I tried:

Thermoskin Arthritic Gloves:  These create gentle pressure and warmth, […]

Each Monday, we’ll look at ways to cope well with pain and how to get yourself to use helpful techniques regularly.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
Today’s exercise is adding visualization to the relaxation skills you’re practicing.  Visualization is simply adding in a picture image to help with relaxation.  Both relaxation and visualization are intended to reduce pain […]

Where can kids turn for resources to help cope with chronic pain or other adversity?  I came across an interesting website, Help Me Cope!, and asked Dr. Taylor to tell us more about a quiz he’s developed to help kids communicate what they need to cope.

Dr. Taylor:  I want to thank How to Cope with […]

This video presents one of the best upcoming pain treatments I know of ….  using f-MRI, which is “functional MRI,” a type of MRI brain scan.  Researchers use f-MRI data from the areas of our brain which are active when we experience pain.  The most exciting way to use this so far - though still only in research protocols […]