Patient Resources Website for Pain Treatment

General General TN & GPN (Old Site)
1

Greetings all,

A friend from the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association website -- Dinah Federer -- recently passed me a link to "Pain Treatment Topics", a website that provides a very large body of information on chronic pain of several types as well as related treatments and support concerns. Dinah is a former rehabilitation counselor and one of my role models in providing thoughtful and timely information to people who deal with face pain. She has also authored a book-- "Chasing Normal" -- that addresses many of the concerns of chronic pain patients and their families for maintaining or restoring the quality of their lives that often seems taken away when pain and its side effects come to stay. Her book is linked from the bottom of the following site homepage:

http://pain-topics.org/patient_resources/index.php

There is much in this resource that seems of value for people who are sorting out facial pain treatment issues and consequences -- both for the patient and for his/her family or care givers. The material linked from this site might save you hours of on-line search and slogging, particularly if you deal with both TN and other medical issues which produce pain.

Go in Peace and Power

Red Lawhern, Ph.D.

2

Thanks, Red

I have read Chasing Normal and appreciated Dinah's insight.

Jackie

3

Hi Red,

I was reading that it is for newly diagnosed people. In your personal experience, would you recommend it also for us 'veterans' who have been with this pain for a while and have done lots of research already?

I always hope for help for my husband, who is a therapist and therefore a natural born caretaker. I worry about the impact my condition has on him. I read the testimonial that he wrote for my ALJ, for the disability hearing, and it made my heart ache.

Thanks for all of the wonderful info that you bring to this site. I've bookmarked the page.

Lily

4

There seem to be a lot of resources on the site that are oriented to care givers at ALL stages of the process from initial evaluation up through and including care giver burnout. It doesn't hurt to review the bidding, as it were. Or to refresh your own knowledge of disorders that "border on" TN. Fibromyealgia, for instance, and MS definitely are issues that touch the same patient and care giver groups.

So I'd say that the site is useful for many more people than just those who are early in the journey.

Regards and best,

Red

Lily said:

Hi Red,

I was reading that it is for newly diagnosed people. In your personal experience, would you recommend it also for us 'veterans' who have been with this pain for a while and have done lots of research already?

I always hope for help for my husband, who is a therapist and therefore a natural born caretaker. I worry about the impact my condition has on him. I read the testimonial that he wrote for my ALJ, for the disability hearing, and it made my heart ache.

Thanks for all of the wonderful info that you bring to this site. I've bookmarked the page.

Lily

5

Whether patient or caregiver, MOST any resource has value, regardless of disease or disorder.

Safety is paramount, Dignity is the bottom line. : ) bob