Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a day of thankfulness, family and good food.  I’m thankful for you, my readers, as well as my fellow bloggers who always contribute great articles to our monthly carnival.  November is no exception to the great submissions.  So with a drum(stick) roll…  the submissions presented as your Thanksgiving feast.
Appetizer:

Fighting a serious infection that [...]

I wrote a guest post over at Zen Habits called 6 Seconds to Relax.  You’re invited to hop over there and try the breathing exercise.  Let me know what you think.  And be sure to read the comments, too.  Great examples, and some are hilarious!
Zen Habits is one of my favorite blogs, so stay for [...]

Reminder:  November Pain-Blog Carnival submissions due today.
For many of us, chronic pain is exactly that – chronic.  Meaning it’s here to stay, it’s settled in - it’s not going away.  What changes when you can’t be cured?

“Settled in”
I recently heard William Breitbart, Chief of Psychiatric Services at the world-famous Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, speak about “Pain and End of [...]

I’m honored to be given the Kreativ Blogger Award, passed on to me by one of my favorite bloggers, Jeisea, at CRPS/RSD A Better Life.
Unfortunately, I could find absolutely nothing about the origins of this award.  I found several different pictures of it on different sites, so my guess is it’s been around for a long while, and has changed [...]

Two of the most interesting new treatments for chronic pain are graded motor imagery and mirror therapy.  A related experimental treatment which is being studied as we speak is called “tactile discrimination.”  What’s this about?
Chronic pain creates changes in your brain.  We think that these brain changes cause other functions to become impaired as well, for example, right-side [...]

The American Pain Foundation has a great list of 10 ways to get better medical care on its website.  Here’s a preview:

Identify your top concerns, questions, and symptoms.
Manage expectations; most pain issues will not be resolved in a single visit.
Keep follow up appointments.
Continued at APF…

 Readers, what other tips do you have?
Reminder:  November Pain-Blog Carnival submissions due by Friday, 11/21.

On Monday, I looked at the many reasons why people with pain might have sleep problems.  Today, let’s look at what you can do to help yourself get better sleep!

Fix What’s Causing Your Sleep Problems
For most people, poor sleep is due to several issues.  If you have pain, any of these might make it difficult to [...]

I received this question from a reader, Migraine Chick:
Have you ever come across people having sleep disorders because of chronic pain?  I’ve been having problems with “sleep paralysis” when I’m home sick and trying to sleep with my migraines.  I was just wondering if this is a common thing for chronic pain people and what [...]

In honor of her book Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! being published, Rosalind Joffe, of the blog Working with Chronic Illness, is on a virtual book tour.  She’s stopping by here today to answer a reader’s question about work and illness.
How to Cope with Pain:  Welcome, Rosalind.  And congratulations on your new book!  A while ago, [...]

Last week I had an appointment with a doctor I see occasionally when a mild problem acts up.  On my previous appointment with him, I waited 2 hours, and his staff never said what was causing the delay.  So this time, I oh-so-cleverly scheduled my appointment at 8:20 am, thinking quick in and out first thing in the [...]