Review of eBook About Living and Coping With Chronic Pain

As chronic pain patients, we normally have to do a lot of work ourselves to learn coping and pain management skills to make living just a little bit easier. There are often no magic answers. We might see a multitude of doctors, try a multitude of medications, but when it comes down to it, we need to try to do what we can ourselves to make life more bearable.

One of my blogging friends has recently written an eBook, “An A-Z of Chronic Pain”, about living and coping with chronic pain and she has very kindly gifted me with a copy so that I could write a review. This review is my own and honest opinion.

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About Alice Garr From the Notebooks and Glasses Blog

Alice Garr has lived with chronic pain for several years. She has coccydynia, meaning she has pain when she sits. Her coccyx was removed a few years ago in an attempt to relieve her pain, but unfortunately, it didn’t help. She also suffers from neck and shoulder pain, endometriosis, IBS and has a hiatus hernia.

Drawing on her own experience, Alice blogs at Notebooks and Glasses and has written this eBook in the hope of helping other people cope with their chronic pain. I read and enjoy Alice’s blog every week, therefore was excited to get the opportunity to read her eBook.

Alice is Used to Living and Coping With Chronic Pain

Very often books about coping with chronic pain are published by doctors, therapists or unqualified self-help gurus. The writers often give advice, but they don’t actually live with chronic pain themselves. They sometimes make no sense to people who do live with chronic pain simply because the author doesn’t actually understand what that’s like. They might make what they consider to be helpful suggestions, but their books very often leave people feeling more despaired than helped.

But Alice does understand what life is like with chronic pain. She understands that it can take over your life and understands how unpredictable it can be. She knows that it affects so many aspects of your life, including the effect it can have on mental health. Alice has had to learn coping skills to manage her chronic pain and in this eBook, she hopes to share some of those with other sufferers.

“An A – Z of Chronic Pain” an Ebook to Help Those Living and Coping With Chronic Pain

Sometimes, reading can be difficult for many people living with chronic pain as it can be tiring, confusing and even painful on the eyes. Chronic pain sufferers often lose concentration easily due to pain, fatigue or medication which means that it is sometimes difficult to focus on and understand long passages. But I found this eBook very easy to read. The topics in “An A-Z of Chronic Pain” are short, meaning it’s easy to read a small amount then go back to it later. This gives the reader the chance to really absorb what’s been written.

“An A – Z of Chronic Pain” is exactly what it says on the tin. There are 26 topics listed alphabetically about life with chronic pain. But the topics don’t just describe the pain, they offer helpful suggestions which many people with chronic pain will benefit from. All of the suggestions which Alice makes are both simple and achievable.

How I Used the A – Z of Chronic Pain

I decided to put my focus on just a few letters per day because I wanted to really take on board what Alice was suggesting. I am glad that I did this because she gives some excellent advice.

Alice uses her experience throughout the eBook, but her focus is on you, the reader. She promotes self-care and suggests making practical healthy lifestyle choices. She tackles everyday issues which can be caused by chronic pain, including mental health problems, and tries to make suggestions that could help. All of the suggestions are sensible and as I said earlier, they’re achievable.

In one topic, Alice talks you through a simple breathing exercise that can help you cope during difficult times. We all breathe – obviously, we have to – but doing an exercise like this can really help people cope with pain. I tried it and have been using it daily ever since.

In another topic, Alice takes FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and turns it on its head. She looks for something positive so that missing out on something is easier to cope with. What she said made perfect sense to me.

Depending on the topic, Alice has also given useful links to her own blog posts where she has written about the subject in more detail. It’s like a bonus within the eBook where you are able to delve deeper for more information.

I Needed to Read This eBook

Sometimes I’ve written blog posts and a reader has thanked me and said, “I really needed to read this today.”

Well, I felt the same way while reading this eBook.

Alice didn’t know it, but when she asked me to read and review her eBook, the chronic pain that I am living with had spiralled and my coping skills had vanished. Since breaking a rib last November, nothing has gone right. At that time, I jokingly suggested I should wrap myself in bubble wrap. I think I should have done that!

About three weeks after I fractured that rib, I turned over in bed one morning and fractured another on the opposite side. Then, in January, I picked up a cold and cough which lasted for over a month. And with every cough, I squealed in pain.

Two weeks ago, my doctor sent me to the hospital because she was concerned in case the pain was caused by a blot clot. That was a wee bit of a panic, but I’m happy to say there was no blood clot and my lungs were clear. The pain was just “a few rib fractures” and thankfully nothing more sinister.

Pain seemed to be piling on top of pain and I’d been feeling pretty sorry for myself. I possibly wasn’t coping as well as I normally would, therefore, Alice’s eBook was timely and very helpful.

There Are No Magic Answers for Chronic Pain

As I said earlier, there are no magic answers when you are living with chronic pain so you need to find ways of coping with it. I think that Alice’s eBook could help people to do just that because she gives simple, but extremely helpful suggestions.

How to Find “An A-Z of Chronic Pain” by Alice Garr

Please check out Alice’s blog here: Notebooks and Glasses.
You can read more about the eBook here on her blog.
If you’d like to purchase “An A-Z of Chronic Pain”, you’ll find it on the following links on Amazon:
Amazon.uk
Amazon.com

Thank you to Alice for giving me the opportunity to review “An A-Z of Chronic Pain”. It’s an excellent eBook and it helped me at a time when I really needed it.