Welcome to the October Pain-Blog Carnival, a selection of great writing related to pain from this past month.  I hope these are helpful and interesting to you! A new blog to join us, Life with Chronic Pain, has some good writing about his life coping with pain. Migraine Chick uses humor to cope with pain.  Creativity anyone? One [...]

This article is one in a series on Medications for Pain…  What are your choices?  How do various medications work?  What are the pros and cons?  How about side effects? Today we’ll look at the medication category of Anti-Hypertensive Medication.  This class of medication includes drugs originally used to control high blood pressure.  A common [...]

On Fridays, I’m sharing relaxation videos from YouTube.  I hope you try them and enjoy them! Today’s video is from Ferrari Boeing.  For those of you in the southerm hemisphere where it’s Spring instead of Fall, perhaps you can imagine this in reverse! 

Ketamine is an anesthetic approved for both human and animal use in medical settings since 1970.  Current investigations are looking at its use for chronic pain.  2 new studies are promising: The first study is ”Ketamine produces effective and long-term pain relief in patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type 1” which appears in Pain, October 2009.  This [...]

This article is one in a series on Medications for Pain…  what are your choices?  how do various medications work?  what are the pros and cons?  how about side effects? Today we’ll look at the medication category of Muscle Relaxants.  Muscle relaxants are drugs which help muscles relax and prevent muscle spasms.  Common medications include Zanaflex [...]

On Fridays, I’m sharing relaxation videos from YouTube.  I hope you try them and enjoy them! Today’s video is from New Ocean Flower 1. FYI…  The National Vulvadynia Association has a monthly e-newsletter you can sign up for.  One interesting article in the October issue is their online learning program for women with vulvadynia.  More info here.

The writer at Pain for Philosphers recently sent me a link to a Washington Post article about mindfulness for pain.  The author Mindy Greenstein writes about using mindfulness to help cope with anxiety and pain related to her breast cancer treatment.  Greenstein quotes Cindy Sanderson, a psychologist and fellow person with breast cancer: “I realized,” Sanderson told us, “that [...]

This article is in our series on Medications for Pain…  What are your choices?  How do various medications work?  What are the pros and cons?  How about side effects?  (Always discuss medication questions and decisions with your pain management physician.) The medication we’ll look at today is Ketamine, an anesthetic.  Anesthetics are drugs which prevent sensations, particularly [...]

On Fridays, I’m sharing relaxation videos from YouTube.  I hope you try them and enjoy them! Today’s video is from Lumina Channel and uses beautiful pictures of the sky and nature.

I received some samples of pain-relieving lotions recently from Deep Relief Pain Lotions and wanted to share a good resource with you.  Deep Relief Pain Solutions offers 2 different kind of gels, one which feels warm and one which feels cool. I had a few patients sample the lotions and both got good reviews.  The company website [...]