I received an interesting but somewhat confrontational email that I saw when I first got up this morning.  The person had been looking around our website (www.addiction-free.com) and obviously became very upset with some of what they saw or an article they read.  This person completely dismissed the concept of pain having both physical as well as psychological and emotional components and also became a little abusive.

When I tried to respond to their email address I found out it was a bogus address.  To be fair I’ll put the original email and my response below in case they happen to read this blog.

Original Email

Comments: You sound like a quack who has not experienced chronic pain. The mumble jumble of mind over matter is a load of crap. If I could make my pain go away or hurt less by “thinking it isn’t so bad” I would be pain free. I am not pain free and articles like yours make some doctors unwilling to believe a person is truly in severe chronic pain. It is hard enough to get a doctor to treat pain.

My Response

Thank you for taking the time to email me.  I’m sorry that you think I sound like a quack.  I’m not even sure which article you are referring to. 

Also, I have been living with my own chronic pain for over 27years now and I really do know that it’s not ALL about mind over matter; but that is an important part of it.  I have worked with thousands of chronic pain patients the past 25 year and I never minimize the seriousness of my patients’ pain or try to convince them they don’t feel what they feel.  Too many healthcare providers do just that.

I don’t expect to convince you but I would ask that you at least don’t completely rule out the psychological and emotional components of pain; because they are just as important as the physical when living with chronic pain.  There is a big difference between living with chronic pain and suffering with chronic pain: I have decided I don’t ever want to suffer with my pain again as I did for the first year after my injury.  Before you make a final decision about the work I’m doing please check out more of my articles especially “Pain versus Suffering.”

To learn more about pain and suffering please check out my article Pain versus Suffering that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

To learn how to tell the difference between physical and psychological pain symptoms please go to our Publications page and check out my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Module One: Understanding and Evaluating Your Chronic Pain Symptoms. To purchase this module please Click Here.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com.

We have a busy fall schedule for upcoming trainings that you can check out on our Calendar page. To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the September Issues of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here.   If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.