Good morning PainNeverDies,

I'm not sure if you've explored "mindfulness" for pain management, but it has shown itself to be extremely effective. It is an acceptance based procedure, unlike almost all therapies today that try to solve a problem and engage in behavior to affect change, it invites the person to experience the situation w/o struggle or an expectation. Essentially, in mindfulness techniques you learn to attend to your pain as opposed to avoiding it or trying to escape it, thereby significantly decreasing it. I know it does sound counter-intuitive, but it is effective.

Mindfulness has been used successfully with cancer patients, Depression, Anxiety, as a prevention strategy for Depression, to boost immune function, sleep disturbances, fybromyalgia.... the list is endless it seems. It has not been shown, however, to be effective with patients with traumatic brain injury.

The idea started in 1979 by a biologist at the University of Massachusetts named Jon Kabat-Zinn (now very heavily published in this area), who took the Vipassana tradition of Buddhist meditation and pared it down to only the meditative practice. He and others have expanded the practice in the last 30 years and it now has a significant efficacy research base.

For more info, you can read:

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

or visit the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness

and for beginners, the excellent:

Mindfulness in Plain English, Updated and Expanded Edition

And finally, to get a better sense of it, you can simply key in "mindfulness and pain" and up should pop up numerous articles.

Good luck PainNeverDies, I know pain very well and so do understand how it can make your world smaller as all energies are focused on simply managing it w/o falling apart or sinking lower.

With understanding and compassion,
Baaku