Patient Pain Care Guide Offers Promising Treatment Options for Mysterious Pain Syndrome

WASHINGTON - Nov. 11, 2014 - PRLog -- Imagine if the mere breeze of an air conditioner on your skin caused you excruciating pain. For thousands of people suffering from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), this crippling, burning pain is an unrelenting reality. Author Elena Juris has written a patient guide for these severe pain sufferers in Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): Self-Help and Treatment. Positive Options is released this month by Turner Publishing (Hunter House Imprints) and now available online worldwide in paperback and e-book formats at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other major booksellers. For direct book purchase information, search for it on Amazon.com or at http://www.hunterhouse.com/shopexd.asp?id=397.

Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is the first book on CRPS to nurture patients’ creative coping skills, integrate complementary therapies seamlessly, and empower CRPS and other severe pain patients with resources for navigating chronic, disabling pain. While the book has been a category bestseller within the CRPS patient advocacy community, newly diagnosed patients still often face bleak options in navigating life with a poorly understood disease; the pain is rated more severe than childbirth, and suicide rates are high among the community.  Focusing on coping skills for living, Juris shares the following for readers:

•          Conventional, complementary and experimental treatment options now available to patients

•          Community resources and adaptive aids that support independent functioning amid severe and chronic pain

•          Stories of healing and adaptation strategies from numerous patient contributors, as well as the author's journey to remission

•          Interviews with 2 practitioners who treat CRPS from both conventional and complementary perspectives

•          Relaxation  techniques, imaginative distraction exercises, cognitive reframing, and stretching oneself to develop new sources of pleasure amid pain

•          Guidance for caregivers struggling to support a pain patient

Prior to her diagnosis in her 20s, Juris was a health communications writer. "CRPS hit me like a burning Mack truck. With my hands stricken by the condition, I had trouble even signing my own name for almost a year. I figured that if I - as an experienced health writer - had such trouble tracking down information for CRPS treatment, then it would be ten times harder for others without my background. I wrote this book for them," explains Juris, who is now in remission.

CRPS remains a mysterious condition and few books about it exist, as knowledge of the syndrome and its etiology continues to evolve. Sadly, it can develop as a painful neuroinflammatory complication of a wide variety of minor injuries or surgeries, usually starting in an upper or lower limb with a tendency to spread. Previously, the condition was called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A recovering CRPS patient currently in remission, Elena Juris has developed patient and professional health education programs and materials for organizations, government agencies, and companies such as the American Cancer Society, American Association of Poison Control Centers, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Pfizer. She is the author of Positive Options for Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (2004) and Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (2014), and she is a member of the American Medical Writers Association. Her creative nonfiction and arts previews have also appeared in a variety of print and online media. Elena resides in Washington, DC, where she currently serves as the Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health Training Center.

SAMPLE PRAISE FOR POSITIVE OPTIONS

“Ms. Juris has written a wonderful, readable, hope-filled book for individuals and families struggling with a too often intractable foe.”

— Jim Broatch, MSW, Executive Director
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association of America

“Finally, what those living with CRPS have needed for so long—an inspirational, positive voice that speaks to us calmly, confidentially, wisely, and equally comforting.”

— Helen Small, president, PARC, Promoting Awareness of RSD and CRPS in Canada

“I can think of no diseases other than CRPS where patient participation in the management is more important.… Elena Juris’s book is not only an inspiration to those who suffer from this disease, it also inspires caregivers and health-care professionals who participate in their treatment.”

— Harry F. L. Pollett, MD, FRCPC, medical director, Non-Malignant Pain Clinic
Northside General Hospital, North Sydney, Nova Scotia

“Elena does a wonderful job demonstrating how, in addition to skilled physical therapy, multiple complementary therapies play a critical role in the individualized rehabilitation of RSD/CRPS.

— Stephanie Gilliam, MPT, Arlington, Virginia

“Elena Juris has put together an amazing book. It describes all types of modalities to enable the chronic sufferer to deal with the pain, discomfort, and apathy that accompany this disease. It offers tips for caregivers and suggestions on how to get appropriate treatment from physicians and other health-care professionals who really know what to do. Positive Optionswill give disheartened patients hope for better things to come and a light at the end of the dim, dark tunnel of CRPS.”

— Edward Carden, MD, MD, FRCPC, FACA, DipAAPM, director, Southern California Academic Pain Management and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Institute, University of Southern California