August 11, 2026- Because of my regularly doing psychological evaluations pertaining to spinal cord stimulators to help reduce pain, I am often talking to people who are in chronic pain and seeking relief. Also because I have treated persons to offer mental health suggestions on how to overcome chronic pain, I am aware that large numbers of persons have had to find ways to cope with pain as best they can resulting from arthritis, osteoporosis, sciatica, slipped discs, fibromyalgia, neuropathy, migraine headaches, or any other situation that causes chronic pain. Chronic pain is that type of pain that never fully leaves you. It may vary from day-to-day, but is always there. How persons individually cope with pain on a regular basis depends on the person and the pain they are dealing with as well as their ability and desire to find mental health techniques to help to go along with any pain medications they are prescribed. Finding and maintaining effective mental health strategies to overcome pain have become more important as we as a society realize that many pain medications are leading to addictions by persons in pain. The important thing to remember is that giving in to the pain is never acceptable because the end result will be anxiety, depression and worse pain. Mental health strategies to try to ameliorate pain and maintain gains that one has obtained through pain management would include positive affirmations that reinforce/support your strategies for pain management, realistic goals you remember as you deal with your pain, keeping track of your progress for reinforcement/encouragement, see going backwards as something that can occur but to always try to move forward, change goals based on the reality of your circumstances, accept challenges and difficulties will occur and try to resolve them as they come up as best you can, accept there are times you will need help and ask for it, a strong sense of spirituality can also be helpful, do progressive relaxation, deep breathing, and self hypnosis to help reduce pain, anxiety and depression when the pain is strong and is hard to cope with, reward yourself as you continue on your road to maintaining your ability to fight your pain as best you can, and possibly seeking out a therapist experienced in pain management to help you as you mentally try strategies to help ameliorate your chronic pain and maintain it. My final point is that chronic pain is something horrible to deal with day in and day out and any mental health strategy that can be used to help eliminate it and maintain pain relief needs to be considered and tried.