101 Tips for Chronic Pain Relief

Pain. It can be low, pounding, never-seems-to-go-away pain or stabbing, piercing, want-to-scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs pain. I've watched chronic pain slowly eat away at a life. Sixty years ago my mother was one of the first to have a new surgical procedure to relieve her pain. It didn't work. Years later her pain finally ended her life shortly after her 40th birthday. What is pain? You know what it is: it's your nervous system telling you that something isn't right and it hurts. Pain is a complex process and it can vary from one person to the next even if they have similar injuries or illnesses. The American Chronic Pain Association simply says that "It's hard to know how to move forward once chronic pain has entered your life. It helps to think of a person with chronic pain like a car with four flat tires." It may take more than one type of therapy or treatment to get the car (your life) moving again. From the 101 Tips Series