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Nancy Darling, Founder 1step2life

I have done a LOT of reading about pain and parenting kids in pain. These are summaries of some of my favorites.

Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation

This is a fantastic paper by Benore, Fahrenkamp, Zhakunets, & Banez (2020) on how pain rehabilitation works in children. One key point: function comes before pain reduction. If you wait until your pain goes away to start doing things, your pain tends to get worse. But if you start doing things, the pain tends to decrease over time. We were very fortunate to work with the Cleveland Clinic Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Program when my son’s pain was at his worst. The 1step2life app is very much grounded in their approach.

Tyramine

Following a low tyramine diet has been absolutely critical to our family. The three posts we have on this topic are among our most popular. Here are the key points to pin to your refrigerator.

A Rescue Plan

It’s hard to think clearly when pain spikes. Planning ahead and assembling what you need will make it easier to cope when things get tough. This template will help you get started.

1steplife YouTube: Pain Education 101

Chronic pain is fundamentally different than acute pain and it needs to be treated differently. The 1step2life YouTube channel has videos about how the nervous system works, the logic pain rehabilitation, and a video for children and adolescence about chronic pain.

Blog Posts & Essays

Following Doctor’s Orders

When teens don’t believe parents or doctors have the right to set rules, they don’t follow them.
Kids Who Go To School In Pain

Note: I wrote this years ago, when my son’s migraines first when chronic. Much has changed in our lives. Sending him to school with his pain remains one of the hardest things my husband and I – and certainly our son – has ever had to do. But every single day he went – maybe…
Being Organized Is Even More Important When You’ve Got No Energy To Spare

I write a lot about organizing, because I have too much to do and very few spoons to spare. I also know that if I don’t write things down, they spin around in my head and keep me from sleeping. If we try to keep everything in our head without an organizational system, we keep…
Sleep & Pain Rehab

Pain Rehab: Building Strength To Push Back Pain People living with pain are most successful at taking back their lives when they take an active role in their recovery. (That’s one of the reasons that 1step2life focuses on emotions, activities, and functioning.) For most of us, there is no ‘magic jelly bean’ that will suddenly…
Want To Hear The Science?

I was excited beyond words to be asked to present the 1step2life app to the team at the Cleveland Clinic Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation program on Monday. These folks are my heroes. For all the pain and trauma that my son’s migraine disease has introduced into his life, we’ve been incredibly lucky to live close to…
Chronic v. Acute Pain

Why do I hurt all the time? Healthy pain is like a good guardian. It keeps you from hurting yourself and teaches you to stay safe. This type of pain is called ‘acute pain’. Unfortunately, sometimes the acute pain system becomes too sensitive and overprotective. When that happens, you perceive pain as if you were injured,…
Representation Matters

When we recognize ourselves in others we admire it allows us to imagine ourselves in a better future.
Don’t Tell Me Everything Happens “For A Reason”

Platitudes can hurt people in pain just as much as illness.
Pain, Emotions, & the Amygdala

Pain leads to depression. Depression leads to pain. The amygdala mediates it all.
Pain, Ambiguous Loss, & Acceptance

Acceptance means holding both a painful now and a hopeful future in our minds· Death can be a harsh shock, as someone is ripped from us and is no longer present in our lives. It has a finality to it – that’s part of the shock and much of the pain. But it is real…
Neuroscience 101

Feeling pain is an essential function of the brain and nervous system. Healthy pain keeps you safe when you touch something hot. It tells you to stop when you’ve exercised and your heart and lungs aren’t providing your muscles with enough oxygen. It reminds you to move when you’ve been sitting too long. Chronic pain,…
Caregiver Mode: Unique to 1step2life

A mother’s despair This app began as a search for a tool. My son was in horrible pain – in bed, in the dark, barely holding on to school. When I looked at him, my first thought was always the same – How much pain is he in? Then I’d wonder if he’d taken his…
The Daily Check In Empowers You to Use Energy Well

The Daily Check In can help you prioritize what is important to you and build a healthier balance in your life.
We’ve Launched! The Weekly Check In

Everyone’s pain is different and everyone is in a different place in their journey.
Allodynia: Smell the Roses

Focusing all your attention on one manageable area of sensation can drown out the sensation of pain.
You Can Curse

How do you cope when things feel their worst? You can cry. Or laugh. Or curse.
Hydration Tip 1

Hydration is every doctor’s go to recommendation for anyone living with chronic pain. But it helps. Your cells can’t function properly without sufficient water. Not drinking enough causes pain all by itself that can’t be distinguished from pain due to illness. Plus – as I always tell my son – if you drink enough water,…
A Life Changing Event

When do I get my old life back? The answer is, you don’t. That’s why they call it a ‘life changing event.’
5% of US teens live with life altering chronic pain

Acute pain is protective. With chronic pain, the pain itself becomes the disease.
Are You Faking It?

Faking being sick? I’m faking being well. And not that successfully.