Earlier this year, I introduced “Christina,” a friend of mine who has multiple medical issues and knows what it is like to live with chronic pain. She has kindly offered to write up posts and thoughts as she comes up with ideas. One of those posts was the very informative post on coping with a dry mouth, which can be a very painful side effect of many medications (Painful dry mouth from medications). After that post, we decided to call her Christina, in order to protect her privacy. She then wrote this helpful post on keeping your records straight: Here’s help to keep your medical records straight.

Now, she has written up an introduction of herself so she can explain why she is so knowledgeable when it comes to pain. Unfortunately, she can also speak from a parent’s point of view as her children also have health issues that cause severe and chronic pain. So, here is the introduction and I hope you get some helpful information from her past contributions and her upcoming ones.

Several months ago, Marijke introduced me as a long-time friend of hers that would sometimes be providing information, tips, and other material for her blog. I haven’t been able to follow her introduction until now, so consider this “Get to Know Christina” day.

I am a “professional patient” rather than a medical professional, with 18 surgeries and innumerable hospitalizations starting in childhood. I have a variety of health issues that run from chronic pain from arthritis and fibromyalgia through genetic conditions such as a bleeding disorder and a failure to “build” correct collagen.

Click here to read more.

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Tags: chronic pain blog, pain blog, severe pain, chronic pain, children and chronic pain, fibromyalgia, migraines

Earlier this year, I introduced “Christina,” a friend of mine who has multiple medical issues and knows what it is like to live with chronic pain. She has kindly offered to write up posts and thoughts as she comes up with ideas. One of those posts was the very informative post on coping with a dry mouth, which can be a very painful side effect of many medications (Painful dry mouth from medications). After that post, we decided to call her Christina, in order to protect her privacy. She then wrote this helpful post on keeping your records straight: Here’s help to keep your medical records straight.

Now, she has written up an introduction of herself so she can explain why she is so knowledgeable when it comes to pain. Unfortunately, she can also speak from a parent’s point of view as her children also have health issues that cause severe and chronic pain. So, here is the introduction and I hope you get some helpful information from her past contributions and her upcoming ones.

Several months ago, Marijke introduced me as a long-time friend of hers that would sometimes be providing information, tips, and other material for her blog. I haven’t been able to follow her introduction until now, so consider this “Get to Know Christina” day.

I am a “professional patient” rather than a medical professional, with 18 surgeries and innumerable hospitalizations starting in childhood. I have a variety of health issues that run from chronic pain from arthritis and fibromyalgia through genetic conditions such as a bleeding disorder and a failure to “build” correct collagen.

I’m in my early 50s, have been married for 25 years to an incredibly supportive husband, and we have 2 sons (21 and 14 years old) and a daughter (18 years old). I was employed as a computer programmer from the time I graduated from college until my youngest child was 3. At that time, I quit work and began teaching my children at home for the simple reason that I wanted more time with them.

Homeschooling lasted for 7 years and we all loved it. However, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 5 years after we started. I kept going for 2 more years, but recognized that I was not able to give my children the education they deserved nor could I take care of myself the way I needed to as it grew worse and worse. That was 4 years ago, and since then, I’ve been disabled. I use both traditional and alternative medicine with an array of specialists, working to find a combination that provides a decent quality of life. During last summer, my husband found a new job and we left our home of 19 years in Pennsylvania for a different home in the New England area (for those unfamiliar with U.S. geography, New England is the group of north-eastern most states, many of which border Canada or the Atlantic or both.)

Unfortunately, all 3 of my children have many of the same conditions I do, and juggling school, friends, and medical issues has been part of their lives since they were very young. It helps a bit that if one has a certain condition, the other 2 probably will too. That really helps in the research department! For example, when my oldest was diagnosed with migraines at 5, I didn’t know much of anything about migraines, and I had no idea children could have them. But when my daughter developed them at about the same age, I recognized them for what they were, and got her appropriate treatment much sooner, and then did it again for my 3rd child.

Because I have spent so much time in medical settings, I have absorbed a great deal of information about my conditions and about other conditions as well. And I’m one of the people that likes to add their comments to many of the topics covered, so you will see my name popping up here and there.

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