This year’s annual KNOWvember campaign, “Art Through Pain,” focused on how creative expression can be a useful tool for processing our experiences with chronic illness and even help us cope with daily pain.
Created by U.S. Pain Foundation, KNOWvember is a month-long educational campaign for the pain community. This year’s campaign offered virtual events, interactive social media posts, and an art submission initiative.
By Mia Maysack
There’s no limit to the unconditional amount of reasons a person could be in pain: genetics, an accident, injury, or surgery gone array.
Swimming/diving were my passions.
It has been said, fear wasn’t an emotion I demonstrated often – at the age of 3, I would attempt jumping into the deep end on my own accord.
At 10 years old, you could find me spending my waking moments at the neighborhood pool from open – to close. Until bacterial meningitis robbed me of childhood, little could anyone have known that I’d live with head pain forevermore.
Each November, U.S. Pain Foundation organizes a month-long educational campaign for the pain community. Recognizing that art and writing can help kids and adults cope with and/or express chronic pain and its effects on their lives, this year’s KNOWvember campaign will focus on creativity.
During the month, titled “Art through Pain: How Creativity Helps Us Cope,” U.S. Pain will be:
Kids with pain have unique obstacles, and they deserve unique support. With this in mind, the 2018 theme for U.S. Pain’s annual KNOWvember campaign was pediatric pain. The month included daily facts on social media and four special webinar events.
Recordings of each event are now available via the links below. You can watch them at any time.
Cannabis and Children: Navigating Parents Through Stigma
Ellen Lenox Smith
Each November, U.S. Pain offers a month-long educational campaign to provide helpful information and resources to people living with pain and their caregivers. In honor of the young individuals who have had to find their new “normal” at an early age, U.S. Pain Foundation is dedicating this year’s KNOWvember campaign to pediatric pain warriors.
Children with pain and their families face a unique set of challenges. To help them navigate these challenges, U.S. Pain will provide daily social media facts throughout the month and the chance to interact leading experts in the pediatric pain arena through several webinars.
Each year, U.S. Pain engages in a month-long educational campaign aimed at providing helpful information and resources to people living with pain and their caregivers. To honor the young pain warriors who have had to find their new “normal” at an early age, U.S. Pain Foundation is dedicating this year’s KNOWvember campaign to pediatric pain warriors.
Through virtual offerings such as webinars, Twitter chats, and Facebook live events, along with daily facts, the pain community will be given the chance to engage with leading experts, nonprofit organizations, children with chronic illness, and others passionate advocates.
As part of its annual “KNOWvember” educational campaign, U.S. Pain hosted five informational webinars around the theme, “All Things Complementary,” focusing on complementary medicine options with a special emphasis on medical cannabis.
If you missed any of the webinars, the recordings can be found below.
- Don’t Let Pain Limit You: Take Charge with Sound Data and Social Support with Rachel Trobman, CEO and founder of the Ouchie app, can be found here.
- Pain Reduction through Grounding: An Exclusive Movie Showing by Laura Koniver, MD, holistic physician, and writer, can be found here.
- Acupressure for Stress Relief: The Seva Stress Release Program with Regina Rosenthal, PT, advanced practitioner of process acupressure, can be found here.
- How to Talk about Pain So your Doctor Will Listen with Diane Cleverly, PhD, founder of Concierge Conversations, can be found here.
- Intersectional Medicine: Cannabis as a Complementary Option with Brandie Cross, PhD, founder and core facilitator of The Pot Lab, can be found here.
“As an organization that understands there is no one-size-fits-all to treat chronic conditions, it made sense to focus on varied modalities this year that have shown to help manage pain,” says Shaina Smith, director of State Advocacy and Alliance Development and KNOWvember campaign founder. “This educational program continues to grow, and once again, we witnessed a significant amount of participation from volunteers, allied organizations, caregivers, and others who welcomed the learning of new therapies. We are extremely grateful for the webinar presenters who took part in the empowering campaign and those pain warriors and caregivers who supported the KNOWvember initiative.”
This year, U.S. Pain’s KNOWvember campaign will highlight complementary medicine options, ranging from massage to acupressure to medical cannabis. Each day, U.S. Pain will be posting a fact about complementary medicine to provide people with chronic diseases options to research when piecing together a pain management plan.
So far, two webinars are scheduled:
- “Acupressure for Stress Relief: The Seva Stress Release Program,” with Regina Rosenthal, PT, an advanced practitioner and instructor of process acupuncture, on Nov. 20 at 7 pm EST. Register here.
- “Don’t Let Pain Limit You: Take Charge with Sound Data and Social Support” with Rachel Trobman, CEO and founder of the pain management app, Ouchie, on Nov. 9 at 12 pm EST. Register here.
More details and registration links for these events will be posted on U.S. Pain’s social media accounts.
U.S Pain’s next webinar for volunteers and members interested in volunteering will be held Nov. 21 at 1 pm, EST. The webinar will feature an informational presentation, “How to talk about pain so your doctor will listen,” given by Diane Cleverly, PhD. Cleverly has 20 years of medical communications experience and is the founder of Concierge Conversations, a coaching service that helps teach patients and providers how to better communicate with one another.