Los Angeles Chronic Pain
Support and advocacy information for individuals dealing with chronic pain.
Category: Uncategorized
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The Power of Connection: Why Being Part of a Support Group Matters When You Live with Chronic Pain
Finding understanding, resilience, and hope through shared experience Living with chronic pain can be isolating. Friends and family often mean well, but unless they live with it every day, they can’t fully understand the relentless challenges, the fatigue, or the emotional toll. That’s where support groups—especially peer-led ones—make a difference. They provide something the medical…
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What is a CES Study?
When people in research circles talk about a “CES study,” they often mean a Comparative Effectiveness Study. This is a type of research that asks a question that’s simple but powerful: Which treatment works better for real people, in real life? Unlike a traditional clinical trial that usually tests one drug against a placebo, a…
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Building Bridges: How Patient Advocate Organizations and Researchers Can Work Together
For too long, clinical trials and research studies have been designed in ways that don’t always reflect the realities of the people most affected—the patients themselves. That’s starting to change, but it won’t happen fully unless we strengthen the partnership between patient advocate organizations and researchers. I’ve seen both sides: the passion and rigor that…
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PCORnet: What It Is and Why It Matters for People Living with Chronic Pain
When we talk about research, too often it feels like something far away—done by scientists in locked labs, with little connection to what we live with every day. That’s why I want to share something important: PCORnet®, the Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network. What Is PCORnet? PCORnet was built by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).…
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The Roles Patients Can Play in Research—and How Their Voice Can Improve the Science
When we talk about clinical research, most people think about scientists, doctors, and labs. But patients have a critical role too—not just as study subjects, but as partners and team members shaping the very science itself. Our voices bring lived reality into spaces that otherwise risk being abstract, disconnected, or incomplete. My Journey into Patient…
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From Stained Lab Coats to Shared Tables:
Incorporating People with Lived Experience Into Research For much of the past century, the public imagination has often reduced science to caricature: a solitary figure in a stained white lab coat, locked away in a laboratory, performing experiments for their own sake—like a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. This outdated stereotype suggests research as…
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September Is Pain Awareness Month: What the Numbers Tell Us and What We Can Do
Every September, we stop to recognize Pain Awareness Month. For those of us living with chronic pain, it’s not about one month. But this is our chance to shine a light, share our stories, and push for better understanding and care. The U.S. Pain Foundation’s most recent reports show just how urgent this work is.…
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What Does This Mean to Me as a Chronic Pain Patient?
When I first started working alongside researchers, I often wondered: Do they really want to hear my perspective, or am I just here to check a box? A new study caught my eye because it tested whether patients, caregivers, peer support specialists, and scientists could come together as true partners in shaping research. The study,…
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Tokenism in Clinical Trials Research: How I Approach It as a Person with Lived Experience
Seeing the Problem for What It Is Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of examples where people like me were brought into research projects to check a box. We were there for appearances’ sake, not because our voices were wanted or needed. That’s tokenism. And it doesn’t just feel wrong—it weakens the research itself. When…
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Patient Safety in Chronic Pain Care: What’s Being Missed—and What Must Change
From medication errors to unsafe dismissals, chronic pain patients face silent dangers that deserve urgent attention. Living with chronic pain is hard enough—navigating unsafe healthcare makes it even harder. For many of us, every doctor visit is a gamble: Will we be heard or ignored? Helped or harmed? Whether it’s being abruptly taken off pain…
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Protecting Your Rights and Raising Your Voice in Politics with Chronic Pain
How people living with chronic pain can safeguard their protections, share their stories, and influence state and national policy. Living with chronic pain is more than just managing symptoms. It is also about protecting our rights and making sure policymakers hear our voices. The truth is, decisions that affect our care, our access to treatments,…
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HEAL Pain Research Priorities – Patient Summary (2025)
Shaping Pain Research Together — With and For Patients On average, it takes 17 years for clinical trial results to reach routine practice. That’s not just a statistic—it’s a warning. This number comes from health policy research reviewed and confirmed across multiple studies. One of the most cited estimates is from Dr. Eugene Balas and…
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Sharing Your Chronic Pain Story
Living with Chronic Pain: Reflections and Realities When you live with chronic pain, you carry more than the pain itself. You carry the stories, the looks, the doubts, the isolation—and the small victories too. Telling that story can feel risky, but it’s one of the most powerful tools we have. I’ve learned over the years…
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Telling Your Story About Living With Chronic Pain
Living with Chronic Pain: Challenges, Choices, and Hope Living with chronic pain is not just a diagnosis; it is a life you carry every single day. Each of us has a story that includes medical challenges, everyday struggles, small victories, and hopes for the future. When we tell those stories, we open doors. We connect…