Citizen Pain

Find taking care of your home and family while living in chronic pain too much to deal with? Here are some tips for managing chronic pain while managing daily life in the home: Slow Cooker Slow cookers let you throw all of the ingredients in, then forget about it. The meal will cook itself without any further effort from you. This works for preparing meals in advance, for example, setting it at night for the next day’s breakfast. Batch Cooking Batch cooking similarly helps with cooking fatigue; when able, make a whole batch of something, then freeze it into individual portions, to be reheated whenever. Place Items in Reach Place the items you use more often on accessible shelves, to avoid having to stretch or bend over. This will save you on the bad days, by making whatever chore you’re doing as easy as possible. Tidy As You Go Tackle chores in small, bite-size pieces. This avoids unnecessary fatigue, and relieves pressure. If you tidy up as you go, you won’...

I was watching the Stephen Colbert interview with Anderson Cooper last night, and he said something really interesting (well, lots of interesting things, but one that stood out): The thesis of his show is "You're Not Crazy". A lot of people have asked me recently why I wrote my newest book, " Taming Chronic Pain ," and I've searched for a smart answer that would make sense and sound right in an interview. The truth is that I didn't have a strong reason behind writing it when I started, I was making notes for myself, and then thought it made an interesting side project. And it sort of snowballed from there. But as Stephen Colbert was speaking, I realized that this was what I was trying to do with the book, both for myself and for anyone who reads it: You're not crazy. So so so many people in chronic pain are told they're not really in pain, they're imagining it, are just lazy, need to man-up, get over it, have a mental health issue ...

AWESOME NEWS! Taming Chronic Pain: A Management Guide for a More Enjoyable Life is now available to buy, review and generally love! THANK YOU to everyone who made this book possible, and to everyone buying, reading, reviewing and generally interacting with the book. Together we can reignite sensible dialogue about pain management and chronic pain, and remove the stigma so many in the chronic pain community face. Order your copy  here .

Get excited folks! My new book Taming Chronic Pain is coming out THIS WEEK! A practical, easy-to-read guide to everything you need to know when living with chronic pain; this book will help you live better and happier regardless of your diagnosis or your lack of one! Chronic pain is massively, surprisingly prevalent - over 20% of us will suffer from it. So the how to's of living with it should be well-known, accessible and discussed, to help all of us! Join the conversation, educate yourself, and help educate others about living with chronic pain, and together we can shine a light on this poorly understood area. Here's a sneak peek inside the book, to whet your appetite and get those orders going! There's plenty more where that came from! Order your copy today!

Travel is supposed to be fun, right? Fun, relaxing, a break from it all... inherently enjoyable. I'm sure those of you with kids are now yelling at me, but I bet even louder yells are coming from the chronic pain community. Cos guess what? Travelling with chronic illness sucks. Getting yourself comfortable and managing your health is hard enough at home, with all of your supports, meds, routines, and home comforts. Now try taking all of that away, and still managing. Cos that's what travel with chronic illness looks like. You can try to ersatz your way to a home-from-home style vacation, of course. Get yourself as close to comfortable as possible. For example, last week we went away to a cottage. It was less than a four hour drive away from our home, we booked a place with every modern comfort (including a single level for the main rooms to avoid stairs), we packed a car load of stuff including food, meds, pillows, and healthcare devices... and even doing all this, it wa...

Even Pearl approves! Order your copy today!