Chronic Pain Management

If you or someone you love is struggling to cope with chronic pain, I’d like to offer you my support and guidance. I have many years of experience both working with people with chronic pain and having chronic pain myself that I can share with you.

What is chronic pain? Everyone suffers from acute pain when injured or ill, but acute pain goes away by itself in time. Unfortunately, chronic pain is an extremely common problem. Experts define it as pain that has not gone away (or recurs) after six months have passed. It is estimated that as many as 1 out of every 5 people in the United States alone suffers from chronic pain. And for every person seeking relief from chronic pain, their loved ones are inevitably affected.

Chronic pain affects people of all ages, races, and occupations. While it disables more people than heart disease or cancer does, it has received relatively little attention from medical researchers until recently and is one of the most under funded major health problems worldwide. It has been estimated that it costs the US economy more than $90 billion per year in medical costs, disability payments, and lost productivity.

In addition to the high financial costs, chronic pain comes with a high emotional price tag. It is often accompanied by depression, anxiety, fatigue, isolation, and lowered self-esteem.

The most common types of chronic pain are headaches, back pain, and arthritis. Other common types of pain are fibromyalgia or myofascial pain, cervical (neck) pain, TMJ (jaw pain), reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), neuropathies, carpal tunnel and repetitive stress injury (RSI), sciatica, pelvic pain or endometriosis pain, and trigeminal neuralgia.

Where did I get my information about chronic pain? From 1985-1995, I was the Executive Director of a non-profit organization called the National Chronic Pain Outreach Association (NCPOA).

This organization was a clearinghouse for information about chronic pain. During those 10 years, I was also the Managing Editor of the organization’s quarterly newsletter which was called Lifeline.

Before I came to NCPOA, I had worked in the pain management field for a number of years. I started and ran a pain management clinic in Austin, Texas and worked as a staff member at other pain clinics as well. And, unfortunately, I developed chronic pain myself some years ago (a condition called fibromyalgia). So, I know what it’s like to experience chronic pain from the patient’s perspective as well as from the perspective of a health care professional.

If you have chronic pain and need support or guidance, please contact me. When you complete my Client Questionnaire, please tell me everything about your pain problem that you think it would be useful for me to know.

Chronic Pain Links

American Chronic Pain Association: www.theacpa.org

North American Chronic Pain Association: www.chronicpaincanada.org

American Pain Foundation: www.painfoundation.org An non-profit online information resource.

Pain.com: www.pain.com

Action On Pain:	www.actiononpain.org
	www.widomaker.com