CHRONIC PAIN CHAMPIONS - Pain Management

Live More. Struggle Less.

You can change the pain experience

Understand pain

The path to recovery starts with education to make sense of the pain so we don't have to focus on it or worry about it.

Pain is an experience with biological, psychological, and social contributors, not just a number on the pain scale or an accurate indicator of tissue damage or disease.

Just treating chronic pain biomedically with pills, injections, and surgery isn't enough. We need to treat the whole person with a multidisciplinary pain management approach using the biopsychosocial model as the standard of care.

Accept pain

It’s often the struggle with chronic pain that’s the worst part of having pain, not the pain itself.

The struggle makes it easy to become distressed and feel like a victim.

To minimize the struggle, it’s helpful to come to terms with the pain as our “new normal” – accepting the pain as a part of life with no immediate magical cure.

Change pain

It’s easy to become preoccupied with chronic pain. To feel distressed, to give up, and become a victim just based on how much attention we give it.

We can change pain and turn down the volume by changing how we think, feel, and behave around pain. This includes strategies and skills like cognitive restructuring, deep breathing, and pacing to take control and actively self-manage the pain.

Recovery is possible. The pain experience can change, even go away. If it doesn't, we can live well despite the pain.

Read my published articles. Hear my story.

How to Move Patients from Passive Management to Active Self-Management - published in MedCentral
A Letter to Pain Providers: 10 Do and Don’t Tips from a Chronic Pain Patient - published in HealthCentral
We Have a Chronic Pain Problem, Not a Prescription Opioid Problem - published in HealthCentral
Are You Missing Two-Thirds of Your Potential Pain Treatment Plan? - published in HealthCentral
Five things I wish I knew earlier in my journey with chronic pain - published in StatNews
Hopping Off the Pain Merry-go-round - published in Practical Pain Management
My Time at the Mayo Clinic Pain Rehabilitation Center - published in HealthCentral
Stop Whining and More No-Nonsense Tips from a Chronic Pain Champion - published in Practical Pain Management
25 Tips to Get the Best Treatment - published in National Pain Report
Tinnitus: Part of a Larger Puzzle and Challenge - published by American Tinnitus Association
Living With Chronic Pain: ‘Suffering Is a Choice, and I Choose Not to Suffer’ (GoodRX article about my experience)
Compass Opioid Stewardship interview - Learning to Champion Chronic Pain (Podcast episode hosted by Don Stader, MD, and Rachael Duncan, PharmD)
Modern Pain Care interview (Podcast episode hosted by Mark Kargela, DPT)

Join me and other presenters for the 3rd Supported Pain Self-Management - Online World Conference
February 2025
Registration is by donation. Everyone who registers will receive a video link of the recording. 50% of the registration fees will be sent to an organization who supports self-management and 50% to the Pain Toolkit to support it's upkeep.
Learn more and register.

Take Control

Imagine being in a car with your chronic pain. Where is the pain?

Is pain behind the steering wheel - determining where you go and what you do?
Or are you driving?

You can change the pain experience.
You can take control.

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Are you tired of fighting chronic pain?​Champion it!​