The Value of Education for Chronic Illness Patients

Paula Kamen, author of All In My Head, talks about the val­ue of edu­ca­tion in cop­ing with chron­ic ill­ness in an excel­lent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times, Leav­ing the Rab­bit Hole. This pas­sage, in par­tic­u­lar, spoke to me:

The worst thing, to me, about hav­ing a non-stop mul­ti-year headache isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly the pain. Or the way it tends to dis­rupt inti­mate rela­tion­ships, emp­ty all finan­cial reserves, and sab­o­tage the best-laid career plans. It’s not even the end­less bar­rage of (albeit well-mean­ing) sug­ges­tions for “cures”from every­one you meet, most of which you’ve already tried any­way (except for the colon cleans­ing and the Jews for Jesus conversion).

No, it’s the emo­tion­al suffering—from all the guilt and the shame, of patients like me think­ing it’s our entire fault, and maybe all in our heads.

She also men­tions a good site for any­one who has prob­lems with migraines, Rob­bins Headache Clinic.