Surviving The Chronic Pain Experience Understand And Manage Medical Care And Life Changes

Neck pain, back pain, headaches, muscle pain from accidents in the car, home, or workplace, or from disease (arthritis, fibromyalgia, etc.) - however caused, chronic pain brings many challenges and personal losses. The "Surviving the Chronic Pain Experience" books are guides to improving the life of a person with chronic pain. Issues of adequate medical care, alternative medicine, lost insurance and employment benefits, future insurance protection, employment alternatives, legal struggles, dignity, compassion, and more are addressed. Heartfelt stories, along with detailed research, are summarized and presented. Endorsed by chronic pain physicians, health care providers, and survivors, "Surviving The Chronic Pain Experience: Understand and Manage Medical Care and Life Changes" focuses on medical care, life changes, managing chronic pain, and more. A separate book, "Surviving the Chronic Pain Experience: Successfully Recover Insurance Benefits and Other Promises," is also available.

Chronic pain, which affects 70 million people in the United States alone-more than diabetes, cancer, and heart disease combined-is a major public health issue that remains poorly understood both within the health care system and by those closest to the people it afflicts. This book examines the experience of pain in ways that could significantly improve how patients and practitioners deal with pain. It is the first volume of a new collection of titles within the acclaimed Culture and Politics of Health Care Work series called How Patients Think, intended to give voice to the concerns of patients about their own medical care and the formulation of health policy. Since surviving a near-fatal car accident, Lous Heshusius has suffered from chronic pain for more than a decade, forcing her to give up her career as a professor of education. Inside Chronic Pain, based in part on the pain journal Heshusius keeps, is a stunning memoir of a life lived in constant pain as well as an insightful and often critical account of the inadequacies of the health care system-from physicians to hospitals and health insurance companies-to understand chronic pain and treat those who suffer from it. Through her own frequently frustrating experiences, she shows how health care providers often ignore, deny, or incorrectly treat chronic pain at immense cost to both the patient and the health care system. She also offers cogent suggestions on improving the quality and outcome of chronic pain care and management, using her encounters with exceptional medical professionals as models. Inside Chronic Pain deals with pain's dramatic and destructive effects on one's sense of self and identity. It chronicles the chaos that takes place, the paralyzing effect of severe pain, the changes in personality that ensue, and the corrosive effects of severe pain on the ability to attend to day-to-day tasks. It describes how one's social life falls apart and isolation takes over. It also relates moments of happiness and beauty and describes how rooting the self in the present is crucial in managing pain. A unique feature of Inside Chronic Pain is the clinical commentary by Dr. Scott M. Fishman, president of the American Pain Foundation. Fishman has long tried to improve the lives of patients like Heshusius. His medical perspective on her very human narrative will help physicians and other clinicians better understand and treat patients with chronic pain.

Neck pain, back pain, headaches, muscle pain from accidents in the car, home, or workplace, or from disease (arthritis, fibromyalgia, etc.) - however caused, chronic pain brings many challenges and personal losses. The "Surviving the Chronic Pain Experience" books are guides to improving the life of a person with chronic pain. Issues of adequate medical care, alternative medicine, lost insurance and employment benefits, future insurance protection, employment alternatives, legal struggles, dignity, compassion, and more are addressed. Heartfelt stories, along with detailed research, are summarized and presented. Endorsed by highly acclaimed attorneys, professors, and survivors, "Surviving The Chronic Pain Experience: Successfully Recover Insurance Benefits and Other Promises" focuses on recovering several types of insurance benefits, employee benefits, etc., for health care, lost wages, and more. An index and 25 appendixes of forms and letters are included for the reader's use. A separate book, "Surviving the Chronic Pain Experience: Understand and Manage Medical Care and Life Changes," is also available.

"10 clinically proven strategies from the leading experts on pain management--Cover"

Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

The relationship between chronic pain and addiction Patients with chronic pain understandably seek relief from their distress and discomfort, but many medications that alleviate pain are potentially addictive, and most chronic pain conditions only have a temporary response to opiate analgesic drugs. This volume reviews the fundamental topics that underlie the complex relationships of this controversial domain. The authors review behavioral models and practical methods for understanding and treating chronic pain and addiction including methods to formulate patients with complex comorbidity and screen patients with chronic pain for addictive liability. Finally, the authors describe the current findings from clinical and basic science that illuminate the role of opiates, cannabinoids and ketamine in the treatment of chronic pain. Up to date and comprehensive, this book is relevant to all professionals engaged in the care of patients with chronic pain or addiction and all others interested in these contemporary issues, particularly non-clinicians seeking clarity in the controversy over the best approach to patients with chronic pain.

“An important antidote to the dogmatic ‘kale and vitamins’ tone of most ‘self-help’ literature.” —Alexa Tsoulis-Reay, senior writer, New York magazine Popular blogger Ilana Jacqueline offers smart and savvy advice, humor, and practical tips for living with an invisible chronic illness. Do you live with a chronic, debilitating, yet invisible condition? You may feel isolated, out of step, judged, lonely, or misunderstood—and that’s on top of dealing with the symptoms of your actual illness. Take heart. You are not alone, although sometimes it can feel that way. Written by a blogger who suffers from an invisible chronic illness, Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness offers peer-to-peer support to help you stay sane, be your own advocate, and get back to living your life. This compelling guide is written for anyone suffering with an illness no one can see—such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), Lyme disease, lupus, dysautonomia, or even multiple sclerosis (MP). This book will tell you everything you need to know about living with a complicated, invisible condition—from how to balance sex, dating, and relationships to handling work and school with unavoidable absences. You’ll also learn to navigate judg-y or skeptical relatives and strangers and—most importantly—manage your medical care. Suffering from a chronic illness doesn’t mean you can’t live an active, engaged life. This book will show you how.