Chronic 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.
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.”
Read MoreFriendship Distracts From Chronic Pain
Last month, I got to see two of my long-time girlfriends that I have known since 1997. You know. The kind that distance and time do not matter and when you get together it is as if no time has passed. This was not only good for my soul, but it was amazing how this visit distracted from my aches and pains.
Read MoreTrack Your Chronic Pain Health History
Without any notice, my neurologist of nearly three years quit. I was assigned to a new one and six months later the entire practice was no longer covered by my health insurance plan.
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