The Friends
Message Board:
Click on the link above to start exploring our online
support group! Talk to people who understand! We have a
wealth of information about CFS, ME, FMS and chronic pain in our forums called
Coping with health problems and Information links.
The support group was created in 2001 by two women who met in Cyberspace,
Linda from California and Mosken from Norway. They are living
with disabling chronic pain, back pain, CFS, ME, FMS and borrelioses. The group is very active and has on the average 5,000 visits and 9,000 pageviews a day.
Today the board is run by three Norwegians and a group of Norwegian and American moderator's.
Chronic pain, back pain, Fibromyalgia (FMS) and Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) have been called the "invisible diseases". A person may look
perfectly healthy, but may have intense pain throughout
the body and feel constantly fatigued and weak.
Research shows that chronic pain can be a disease in itself. Unlike ordinary or acute pain, which is a function of a healthy nervous system, chronic pain resembles a disease in itself, a pathology of the nervous system that produces abnormal changes in the brain and spinal cord. New technology, like functional imaging, which is generating the first portraits of brains in action, is revealing the nature of pain's pathology.
Far from being simply an unpleasant experience, pain turns out to be harmful to the body. Pain unleashes a cascade of negative hormones like cortisol that adversely affect the immune system and kidney function. Patients treated with morphine heal more quickly after surgery. A recent study suggests that adequate cancer-pain treatment may influence the prospects for survival: rats with tumors given morphine actually live longer than those that do not receive it.
The general lack of understanding of how persistent pain becomes magnified and ingrained, prevents many patients from receiving the level of care that they need to regain control of their lives and resume normal activities.
Join
us in using internet resources to gain updated information
and learn how to empower yourself with coping skills.
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