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 [...]

Each Monday this series of articles will feature pain management techniques to help you decrease and cope with pain.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
Last week, we looked at relaxed breathing exercises.  This week you’re invited to try a basic relaxation exercise.  Both of these techniques are intended to reduce pain by helping you be more relaxed.

Relaxation Exercise

There [...]

Today is the last day to send in your submissions for our January Pain-Blog Carnival.
A reader Bob R. wrote in recently to say:
I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your hard work.
As a guy who currently has an internal morphine pump, plus additional OxyContin and morphine, I understand just how hard it can [...]

Cindi L. recently wrote in with this question:
I would like to see you blog about the way we can learn to connect with our physicians.  I find it difficult to discuss my pain, and I’m misunderstood for possibly seeking medications for my disease.  I’ve suffered with RSD for 21 years, and am still trying to understand [...]

Each Monday this series of articles will feature pain management techniques to help you decrease and cope with pain.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
So far we’ve looked what stages you go through when you try to change a habit, and what can help you at each stage to be successful with your habit-change goal.  Today we’ll start to look at [...]

There are many non-medication strategies for coping with pain.  But who will benefit from which ones?  A study I came across recently looked at how to predict who will be helped with guided imagery.

The study tested patients with cancer who had pain levels of 3/10 or greater.  They found that those patients with good ability to see [...]

Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are 2 disorders for which there are lots of unknowns - including major areas such as causes and treatments.  A book sent to me recently, Reviving the Broken Marionette, provides a great deal of solid information about medication treatment for these conditions.
The author, Maija Haavisto, is a Finnish medical writer who [...]

Each Monday this series of articles will feature pain management techniques to help you decrease and cope with pain.  It’s your at-home pain management class!
Last Monday, we looked at the stages we go through when changing a habit.  Today, we’ll examine:
What’s useful at each stage to help yourself change a habit.
After you find what stage you’re [...]

January 1 means making resolutions for many of us.  Exercising more is the 2nd most popular resolution people make on the first of the new year (see the other 9 common ones below).
However, foot and ankles surgeons warn that foot pain then follows for some of us.  If you aren’t used to exercising, you might jump in too fast [...]

Our December How to Cope with Pain contest is over - we had 66 people enter, and we’re up to 214 people who have How to Cope with Pain delivered directly to them – free.  Based on a random drawing, the following lucky readers will receive one of the 7 prizes:

PJ N.
Aziz A.
Denise
Michele
Kathy L.
Melissa
Dan

Congratulations!!!  If you’re a winner, I’ve [...]