How To Avoid Being The Neuropathy Grinch At Christmas

Today's short post from nationalpainreport.com (see link below) is about as current a topic as you can get and talks about dealing with chronic pain and other neuropathic symptoms when everyone around you is hollering and whooping with (enforced) joy. You often just want them to go away and leave you alone, curled up in a ball in a Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs. Not a good idea if you want sympathy from your nearest and dearest for the rest of the year! However, your problems are all too frequently underestimated and ignored and that can double their effect. This article gives a pretty skimpy and clichéd set of advisory tips but in the end, you have to face the problem and develop your own strategies to survive the holiday period. That doesn't mean giving in to all demands and wearing your plastic smile until the twelfth day of Christmas but it does mean setting boundaries for yourself and getting your alone time if and when you need it. A bit of explanatory preparation will help others to understand you're not going to be 'on' all the time. look after yourself first but helping others enjoy themselves is a positive distraction from your daily pain.

The Christmas Holidays and Chronic Pain
Posted on December 24, 2015 

The holidays are a joyous time for many – but for others, including many who suffer from chronic illness, it can be a difficult time. What the head of the Southern Pain Society calls the “Holiday Blues” or the “Charlie Brown Christmas” may occur at any holiday or vacation time, but most commonly happens during the December holidays.

We asked one of our contributors, Dr. Geralyn Datz about the difficulty that some people have in the holiday season. She says the sadness and even depression can come on for a variety of reasons, like high physical stress as well as psychological and financial and family tension. Dr. Datz is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in behavioral medicine.

For some pain patients, it can be caused by both the memories of what life was like when you were pain free and/or because, well, the pain just hurts.

What helps manage it?

The answers are not surprising but often for pain patients, they just aren’t easy to do:

Rest and Get Enough Sleep
Regular Exercise
Eat a balanced/healthy diet

Dr. Datz talks about coping…and has some tips on what to do.
Surround yourself with supportive people—reconnect with old friends
Talk with family about the limitations your pain imposes, “Be honest with yourself and with your family about what you can and cannot do,” she said.
If you are religious, “focusing on the spiritual significant of the holidays can also help.”

Dr. Datz leads the Southern Pain Society which was incorporated in 1989 and is a region of the American Pain Society covering the 18 southern states and Puerto Rico.

“Our mission is to serve people with pain by advancing research and treatment and to increase the knowledge and skill of the regional professional community,” she said.

The Christmas holidays aren’t easy for the chronic pain patient.

In our commentary section to this article tells us how you are doing during the holidays and what you do to cope. We’ll take some of the comments and share them in a story on Christmas Day.

Your friends at the National Pain Report wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season, and know that we are thinking about you.

http://nationalpainreport.com/the-christmas-holidays-and-chronic-pain-8828839.html