Managing our chronic pain

See also Politics of pain relief - arguments for the use of opioid analgesics;
Chronic pain websites to visit for information and support;
Treatment and Research links, for articles about pain research, Myofascial Pain Syndrome, trigger point therapy and Post-traumatic Fibromyalgia.

Treating CFIDS & Fibromyalgia: Fighting Pain, By Bruce Campbell. Factors that make you worse, strategies and remedies. From a series of useful articles at www.cfidsselfhelp.org.

Gain Power over Pain and Pain Resource Guides from the Partners against Pain website.

Treating pain with medications - advice from Intellihealth on the various medications available, possible side effects and the best way to use them.

Statement on patients' rights to pain management from the Royal Australian/NZ College of Anaesthetists. "...ANZCA recognises that severe unrelieved pain can have severe adverse physical and psychological effects on patients, with associated emotional, social and spiritual effects causing suffering in patients, their families and those close to them ... pain is a personal experience and that there is great variability among people in their response to different situations "

Heroin, fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone methadone and other opioids: References and further reading from FUTURE OPIOIDS.

Prescribing Methadone for pain by David Wilmont MD. "Like it or not, accept it or not, a powerful stigma has been attached to methadone as a result of its status as the only legally approved drug for management of opiate and/or opioid addiction. Methadone also happens to be a superb and most efficacious medication for treatment of intractable pain."

Pain Medicine FAQ from Beth Israel Medical Centre - frequently asked questions about the cause and treatment of pain.  General Treatments - more detailed information about the various approaches to treating pain, including opioids and complementary medicine.

Teating the pain in CFIDS: Effective pain relief is hard to get (and the best medicines are rarely used) - from the archives of The CFIDS Chronicle, by Alan Spanos, MD, MA. Outlines your options and some pitfalls to beware.

Are you new to Chronic Pain? - helpful advice from Steve Thomson's Australian Pain World site.

Conquering Pain - article from Business Week, March 9, 1999 explains pain mechanisms and new alternatives to opiates.

The Randall Chronic Pain Scale - developed by a chronic pain sufferer to give her doctor accurate information about how bad her pain is at any particular time. Includes tips on personalizing the Pain Scale for your own use.

Pain Control: A Guide for People with Cancer and Their Families - this online booklet from the National Cancer Institute contains helpful information and advice for anyone with severe ongoing pain. Lists and discusses the various medicines used to relieve pain (including opiates, anti-inflammatory drugs, anticonvulsants, anti-histamines and tranquillisers), and also gives good advice about the benefits of treating pain, how to take pain medicines effectively, and non-drug  methods of treating pain.

Pain Management & IC - a handbook for sufferers of interstitial cystitis, this collection of articles contains good advice for anyone in chronic pain. Includes Your Rights and Responsibilities as a Pain Patient, Myths and Issues of Narcotic Pain Management, and Coping with Flares.

Featured articles on Chronic Pain from the Patient/Caregiver section of the Partners against Pain website offer some useful information.

People and Pain: How to Deal with the Chronic Pain of Fibromyalgia - by Cecil E. Maranville. This is a very inspirational guide, written by a fibromyalgia sufferer from his own experience. Cecil's advice in Chapter 9 on "magic words" has helped me a lot. Highly recommended. This book was formerly on the Colorado HealthSite, but is now available to buy, check it out here. ISBN 1413774822

My goal in producing this book is to give to others what I could not find - information in plain language explaining what pain does to people ... Failing to find relief from pain through all the traditional and not-so-traditional methods I came across, I turned to a goal of survival. Information was scarce. What effect will the disease have on the family of the one who is ill? Where does a person go for support? Is there a way to live with perpetual pain? ... What I found, as well as what I learned by sweat, tears and toil, is here for you - in layman's language. [from the Introduction to People and Pain]

From deep within Dragonrider's cave: Personal Thoughts On Chronic Pain - "Chronic pain is just another of the many life challenges that temper and mold us ..." Includes Grieving and The Pain Process and Dealing with Anger.

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