Welcome to July’s Pain-Blog Carnival, a collection of this month’s great writing related to pain.  If you have a blog or website and would like to have an article considered for a future edition, let me know here. Ordinary Miracles shares an article from the Onion that puts our problems into perspective.  A great – and sobering – read! [...]

Alexandra Carmichael, a scientist whose mother has lived with migraine for 30 years, is conducting a study on migraine through the website she co-founded, Cure Together.  She’s gathering self-reported data on symptoms, treatments, and triggers for migraine, to discover which migraine treatments work best for patients with different groups of symptoms. Participation in the study [...]

On Fridays, I’m sharing relaxation videos from YouTube.  I hope you try them and enjoy them! Today’s video is from 2331152 Channel.

I was on vacation in London and Paris recently…  croissants, the Louvre, double-decker buses…  We had a really good time.  We took the “tube” and “metro,” the subways in these 2 cities, everywhere, which was very convenient and the only sane way to get around these 2 cities. However, I did notice that many subway stations [...]

This article is from Sarah B., a colleague of mine and social work student.  Sarah is doing a project about health advocacy. Dear How To Cope With Pain Readers: An important part of coping with pain is learning to advocate for yourself with doctors, caregivers, friends and family.  We’ve all learned important advocacy skills in the [...]

On Fridays, I’m sharing relaxation videos from YouTube.  I hope you try and enjoy them! Today’s relaxation exercise is from Seller Central.

Like many chronic pain conditions, fibromyalgia can be: hard to diagnose mistaken for other disorders mistaken as a psychological problem hard to treat The wonderful American Pain Foundation has come out with a Fibromyalgia Toolkit that has information about: the disorder treatment how to cope recent advances current research This is a great project and [...]

Updated 2010 articles in this series: Why comprehensive treatment works better Benefits of a psychiatric evaluation Treatment of psychiatric symptoms Using psychiatric medications for pain Learning psychological skills Making positive behavioral changes Making positive psychological changes Benefits of supportive therapy Benefits of a pain support group New brain-based treatments

On Fridays, I’m sharing relaxation videos from YouTube.  I hope you try and enjoy them! Today’s video is from Take Money 9.

Your pain is decreasing… Your comfort is increasing… You can move easier… You’re becoming more relaxed… I often use suggestions such as these of more comfort when I teach patients relaxation and guided imagery exercises.  But would these suggestions achieve a better effect during hypnosis instead? A recent study says yes. Researchers worked with patients with [...]