Thrive with chronic pain
finding acceptance in our lives
9 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Chronic Pain
Use this list to start the New Year and consciously reduce your pain.
Trust that they work. There is a reason that you’ve probably heard most of these suggestions. Why? Because they consistently help!
Read MoreMake your pain management tools list for the new year!
What tools are you using daily to help you with your pain?
Because chronic pain is so taxing on your mind and body, you need to take action to reduce it. You can look up how all the items on this list help reduce pain and you will find evidence-based proof. It’s science!
The New Year is a great time to update your existing list or build one for the first time.
Read MoreChronic Pain and Self-Care
If this is your season of celebration, please take a moment for your own self-care.
What can you do during this potentially busy season?
Read MoreShapeshifting Relieves Chronic Pain
What? Really? How? Shapeshifting?
In mythology, fairy tales, or shamanic lore, shapeshifting is typically defined as when humans change into someone or something else. One of the most common examples in movies and books is a werewolf. If you were bitten by a werewolf, you would then transform from a man into a wolf at every full moon. Completely!
Read MoreWords and Chronic Pain
“Never own a disease. Reduce the amount of time you talk about it. Refuse to allow illness a place in your consciousness.” RawforBeauty.com
Every time I read this it stops me in my tracks just as pain can stop me. I think about this and work on it daily in order to thrive. When my symptoms flare, it’s as if the disease is working to find a place in my consciousness.
Read MoreHolidays and Chronic Pain
Do you have to keep doing all the holiday traditions?
What is most important?
Is it your family? Is it your friends? Buying presents? Wrapping presents? Stuffing stockings? Decorating? Cooking? Cleaning? Caring for the emotional health of everyone else?
Read MoreChronic Pain Support Groups
I am in several online support groups for Trigeminal Neuralgia and Occipital and Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia. I have learned so much about these conditions, what gives relief, and what procedures have been successful for others because I joined five years ago.
Read MoreDistraction is the Most Powerful Analgesic
The Number one Thing you can do for Pain Relief
Distraction is the most powerful analgesic because it helps you stop catastrophizing every ache and pain. “… it appears to involve competition for attention between a highly salient sensation (pain) and consciously directed focus on some other information processing activity.” How Does Distraction Work in the Management of Pain?
Read MoreBrain Surgery
I recently had brain surgery to cure Trigeminal, Occipital and Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia.
My husband and I had the luxury of going to the beautiful Oregon Coast for five days just before my procedure. The night before, we went to the Oregon Symphony with my parents, sisters, and brothers-in-law to listen to Motown songs. I was feeling the ocean and hearing the toe-tapping tunes as I rolled into surgery.
I highly recommend if you have an operation coming up, do something you adore the week before or at least the night before. Your recovery will be smoother. It’s science.
Read MoreLessons during an MRI
During a very loud and claustrophobic MRI and angiogram of my brain’s blood vessels, I used self-hypnosis to stay still for an hour. Especially after the tech closed the cage over my face and said, “Try not to move your head.”
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