A Diagnosis is not needed to Treat Your Joint Pain
Joint pain can be a debilitating and frustrating experience, but it doesn’t always have to be explained by a diagnosis.
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Sleep Tips for Those in Chronic Pain
Sleep tips for those with Chronic Pain: How to get a good night’s rest and lower your pain. It’s not as hard as you think.
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Trauma and Pain
Trauma and pain are more related than most people realize. Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience, you know, like pain.
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Stages of Grief and Why They Matter with Chronic Pain
The stages of grief may seem a funny topic for those with persisting pain. Let me explain. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced pain that persists understands how much loss is involved, including the person experiencing it. We spend so much time in survival. We live moment to moment, medical visit to medical visit…
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Power of Visualization
The power of visualization.
I want to share with you some amazing facts about the power of visualization, the nervous system, and how they apply to you and helping you move beyond your pain! -
How do we know how hard is too hard to work out?
What difference does it make how hard you work out? Knowing how hard you are working out or any given movement is a really important way to track the progress that most people don’t think about. I learned all about this way back in my swimming days. We would set a pace time and try…
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Movement snacks during your day
Movement Snacks are short and simple movement breaks that nourishes your body and mind. Snacks last 3 to 5 minutes
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How to Start Moving Again When You Hurt
A smart guide on how to start moving again when you hurt. I want you to have the tools you need to get back to whatever it is you are missing.
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The Most Common Exercise Mistakes…
I humbly start this post today admitting to you that I have committed all these exercise mistakes trying to get back to moving with chronic pain, and probably more of them. Let me know if you relate.I would wake one day and be so flipping tired of all the things I couldn’t do. All the…
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Exercising with Chronic Pain, Am I Really Safe to Move?
Exercising with pain can be a hard road to travel down. Often we have been stuck in movement prison and have a hard time knowing it is safe to move. Read on for some hard learned lessons from my experience.
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Why Movement Matters: Why Exercise with chronic pain?
Why Movement Matters: Advice and tips on how to exercise with chronic pain to help you do the everyday things that are important to you.
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The Ultimate Guide To Treatment Options For SIJ Pain
I remember being thrilled in 1993 when I finally had a name for my pain. That kinda makes me laugh now because as we have been talking about, that name really doesn’t mean anything more than pain. Let’s note a few things about the definition. This really is a huge chunk of the problem when…
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The Myths of Physical Therapy and Pain
Have you ever been frustrated by the explanations for pain that you have been given? Maybe you felt like you have failed in some way because you did all you were asked, yet the pain remained. Maybe you felt broken as I talked about here. Thinking you were weak, lacking, or not enough. I admit…
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The Truth about Imaging
I know you have been here before. Your back or butt hurts and it’s been a long time, and you finally go to the doctor. They order and x-ray or an MRI and you anxiously await the results, thinking that they will be giving you a reason for you increasing pain. The results come back…
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Beautiful not Broken
Medical diagnosis of Chronic pain and chronic illness can wear us down and make pain worse. Remember who you are.
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The Route of SI Pain
In the quest to nail down exactly where pain is coming from, people have a tendency to drive themselves absolutely insane trying to pinpoint WHERE the pain is coming from. Questions flood SI joint Facebook daily. Does anyone else have pain down their leg, in their foot, down the side of their leg, outer hip,…
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Tell me how to diagnose my SI joint pain
Does this sound familiar? It’s hard to sit. Maybe if I adjust how I’m sitting the pain will go away, or at the very least transfer to a new part of me that has had a break from the pain for a while. Tag, you’re it. Maybe standing will help. But then. The transition from…
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The Mysterious SI Joint Explained
The SI joint is a mystery to many that have pain in this area. In this blog post we will demystify the anatomy and purpose of this joint.
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What’s Your Story?
I have a friend that is got her masters in English. She is really a remarkable woman with deep compassion and heart and a lot of insight. I love talking to her. We often sit near each other at swim meets, I can’t imagine what it is like to sit near us and catch snippets…
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Let’s talk about sex!
Chronic Pain can interrupt our sex lives and challenge intimacy with our loved one. Read on to get tips to help.
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8 New Breathing Techniques to Lower Your Pain
I suggest breathing a lot as a way to start to get a handle on your pain. I am often looked at like I have lost my mind, or that there is no way breathing can help. If you have been reading my blog for very long, you know I am a firm believer that…
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Dealing with Stress: Building Resilience to Deal with the Challenge of Pain
I talk about stress a lot because it really does impact our pain. I want to give you more tools to help your pain, even if it feels indirect.
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Self Talk: Building Resilience to Deal with the Challenge of Pain
Identifying, Challenging, and Changing: These are the things we have to do with our self-talk to live more full lives alongside our pain. What is self-talk? It’s a normal thing we humans do all day, every day. Sometimes we are aware of it. Sometimes we aren’t. It’s basically a mix of conscious thoughts and unconscious beliefs. …
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Letting Go, not Giving Up – the Freedom of Acceptance.
You may have noticed I talk a fair bit about acceptance in my blog posts/page. Once again, I was asked how I accepted my pain and why that mattered with respect to going from bed-bound to being able to go back to the gym and do whatever I want. In terms of pain scale: From…
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Progressive Muscle Relaxation & How to Use It
I was introduced to progressive muscle relaxation by my high school swim coach. It was like heaven. The team would go to this dark room and the upperclassmen would get these lazy boy like recliners and the underclassmen would get yoga mats. I loved these sessions. I always felt so renewed after them. So if…
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Asking for Help on Hard Days
Asking for help on the harder pain days can be challenging. Feelings of being a burden to those we love can be a real challenge. I was terrible at asking for help when I was in pain. I felt like I had to do it all myself or I was weak, a burden, not worth…
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Understanding Persistent Pain: Why we Hurt
The International Association of the Study of Pain ( IASP) defines pain this way, “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”. I see pain as annoying, interrupting, concerning, often limiting, AND very normal. Say what now? Yup – that’s right I said…
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Helping those in pain help themselves
I find myself deeply contemplative about the last week of information I was fortunate enough to be exposed to by attending the San Diego Pain Summit. It’s taken a bit to decide how to boil down what I am taking away beyond a deep sense of belonging and hope for all those experiencing pain. For…
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What is Graded Exposure and What Does It Have to do with Chronic Pain?
Graded exposure is a simple tool anyone can use to help map out what causes fear and gives you a way to move through it and then past it. It’s a therapy that helps you face your fears in a gradual way. It can be used for any sort of anxiety but is often used…
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6 Key Strategies for Pacing When Living With Chronic Pain
6 key steps to pacing when living with chronic pain
