Focus on Pain:
a patient-to-patient resource
updated
18-May-2006
Many Guillain-Barré patients suffer from sensations of pain. Not all do, see 'Symptoms' for a description on how the syndrome affects individual patients.
This page offers information on pain. Please email suggestions and specific tips relating to how pain can be tackled by sufferers of this syndrome.
Basic articles:
- What is pain? - A quick overview.
- Does pain serve a purpose? - Its a warning system, not a character-building tool!Diagnosis and Treatment
If you have difficulty finding pain relief, consider going to a pain
management clinic. These specialise in pain relief and can help put together a combination of treatments that each give small amounts of relief, and that together help relieve pain in several ways and reduce the amount of pain medications patients have to take. They can recommend treatments such as yoga, meditation, swim therapy, heat therapy etc.
- Pain: Diagnosis and Treatment - A very thorough article.
- The Management of ... Pain - Pain medicine doctors, pain management, pain treatment centres.
- A primer on pain management - [reg. reqd., free]
- New Study Shows That Pain Can Become a Disease Itself
- Chronic pain: Exercise can bring relief - When you're inactive or confined to a bed, your muscles, including your heart,, which is also a muscle!, immediately begin to lose strength, which may cause pain. Your blood pressure may increase, as well as fatigue, stress and anxiety. Read Mayo Clinic's article about the many benefits of exercise and how to get started.
- Pain and assessment scales - a must-read!
- Pain and Your Child or Teen - how children experience pain, how they can be helped to describe it, pain relief using medication and alternative therapies, books and videos on pediatric pain.
- Support and Treatment Often Lag for Children With Chronic Pain - Experts agree that the number of kids with pain far exceeds the number who receive care. [reg. reqd, free]
- Transkutan elektrisk nervestimulationFor health-care professionals
- Pain Information at your Fingertips
A group of leading European specialists have launched a new publication and website in an attempt to reduce the high levels of under-treatment of chronic pain across Europe. Paineurope contains feature articles on treatment-based issues, news updates, clinical comparisons, a research round-up and an interactive question and answer section. It is available in English, German, French, Spanish & Italian. Paineurope is available free to healthcare professionals interested in managing pain. Register for online access or email to receive a paper copy.
- Nursing and supporting patients with chronic pain (PDF)
Persistent misconceptions and attitudes as well as a lack of knowledge may lead to inadequate pain management in patients.
Alternative pain management strategies
- Pain Support An approach in which conventional medicine and complementary therapies work together. Includes self-help skills, nutrition tips (incl. foods that possibly may decrease pain!), and guide to various alternative therapies.
- Chronic pain: Exercise can bring relief
- Deep Brain Stimulation
- Chronic pain sufferers turning to hypnosis
- Approaching Pain's Layers through Hypnosis
- Virtual Reality May Help Manage Acute Pain in Children [reg. reqd., free]
- Traditional Gua Sha and Cupping
- Can mirrors can trick the brain into recovering from persistent pain? - Our bodies predict what is going to happen. In some cases, discrepancies between the predicted state and the actual state exist, and the body alerts us using warning mechanisms.
- Everything you wanted to know about GBS.. - Very thorough!
- Music as medicine
- Music therapy
- Akupunktur i smertebehandlingen
Medications
- Neuropathic Pain: An Update on Effective Management Strategies Medscape. [reg. reqd, free]
- Opioids and Treatment of Chronic Pain: Understanding Pain Patterns and the Role for Rapid-Onset Opioids [reg. needed, free]
- Antidepressants should be first-line approach for nerve tissue pain
- Two-drug combo lessens chronic nerve pain - a combination of morphine and gabapentin controls chronic nerve pain better than either drug alone, and at lower doses. [more, reg. reqd, free]
- Lyrica - soothes stabbing, tingling sensations
- Use of Gabapentin in the treatment of neuropathic pain
- Gabapentin for the treatment of pain in guillain-barre syndrome
- Gabapentin for Neuropathic Pain
- Pfizers information sheet on Neurontin (Gabapentin) - PDF file!
- Withdrawing from medicines
Psychological issues
- Chronic pain: Managing your emotions
How to identify and deal with the varying emotions pain causes.
- When pain remains PDF file!
About the frustrations of being unable to get treatment for one's condition.
- Pain, Depression Often Travel Together
- Black women more affected by chronic pain
- Attuning to a Life in PainFor kids
- About Kids Health
About children's pain: from symptom recognition, to diagnosis, to treatment, to long-term outcomes. Find out about pain assessment, physical, psychological and complementary treatments, the impact of pain on children and families, the valuable role parents can play, and more.
Research
- Pain: Hope Through Research - Growing understanding results in increased research into different ways of treating pain.
- Can You Think Pain Away? - A study shows that expecting pain relief triggers the brain's natural painkillers, the 'placebo effect'. A pain-mood link has been found..
- Train the brain to modulate pain
- Memory could hold key to easing chronic pain
How the body learns to deal with pain, and the link between pain and memory - healing pain apparently begins with the mind.
- Study Links Chronic Pain to Signals in the Brain - Pain linked to two proteins in the brain.
- The fight against pain - on the causes of pain, the impact it has on our lives, work, family and even our mental outlook, as well as new and promising treatments on the horizon.Useful sources of information, bulletin boards etc.
- American Pain Foundation
- Partners against pain
- It takes nerve! - Neuropathic pain: understand the mechanism, how to get treatment and how your medications work.
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© Copyright 2001-2007 S. Marcussen. All rights reserved.
Jsmarcussen.com/gbs takes no responsibility for any errors, omissions or misinterpretations. These pages should be used for information only and you are strongly advised to seek professional help particular to your circumstances. For more information, please visit the website http://www.jsmarcussen.com/gbs or e-mail jsmarcussen@mail.tele.dk
