Patient Pain Care Guide Offers Promising New Treatment Options for Mysterious Pain Condition

Washington, DC, November 13, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Imagine if the mere breeze of an air conditioner on your skin caused you excruciating pain. For thousands of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) sufferers, this nightmare is a reality. Coinciding with November as National CRPS Awareness Month, Turner Publishing announces the release of Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): Self-Help and Treatment, a patient care guide by Elena Juris. The book provides the latest in integrative pain management strategies that speak to CRPS patients and their caregivers.

Focusing on coping skills for living, Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): Self-help and Treatment features the following:

• Conventional, complementary and experimental treatment options now available to CRPS/RSD and other pain patients
• Community resources and adaptive aids that support independent functioning amid chronic pain
• Stories of healing and adaptation strategies from diverse patient contributors
• Interviews with 2 practitioners who treat CRPS and other pain conditions, with both conventional and complementary medicine
• Relaxation techniques, imaginative distraction exercises, cognitive reframing, and stretching oneself to develop new sources of pleasure amid pain
• Guidance for caregivers struggling to support a pain patient

Prior to her diagnosis in her 20s, Juris was a medical communications writer. "CRPS steamrolled me. With both my hands stricken, I had trouble even signing my own name for almost a year. I figured that if I - as an experienced health writer - had such trouble tracking down information for CRPS treatment, then it would be ten times harder for others without my background. I wrote this book for them," explains Juris, who is now in remission. She used voice software to write the guide, illustrating just one of the many supportive resources she recommends for readers.

CRPS remains a mysterious condition and few books about it exist, as knowledge of the syndrome and its etiology continues to evolve. Sadly, it can develop as a painful neuroinflammatory complication of a wide variety of minor injuries or surgeries, usually starting in an upper or lower limb with a tendency to spread.

Previously, the condition was called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD). Juris' book is the first CRPS guide to nurture patients’ creative coping skills, solidly integrate complementary medical therapies, and empower patients with resources for navigating chronic pain. While the book is a category bestseller within the CRPS patient advocacy community, newly diagnosed patients are in dire need of a pragmatic, positive companion resource when first facing this and other devastating pain conditions.

Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is now available for order worldwide at all major booksellers, as well as online in paperback, Kindle, and Nook formats at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. For more information, visit Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, or Amazon.uk and search for the book by name.

Sample Praise for Positive Options:

“Ms. Juris has written a wonderful, readable, hope-filled book for individuals and families struggling with a too often intractable foe.”
— Jim Broatch, MSW, Executive Director
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association of America

“I can think of no diseases other than reflex sympathetic dystrophy where patient participation in the management is more important.… Elena Juris’s book is not only an inspiration to those who suffer from this disease, it also inspires caregivers and health-care professionals who participate in their treatment.”
— Harry F. L. Pollett, MD, FRCPC, medical director, Non-Malignant Pain Clinic
Northside General Hospital, North Sydney, Nova Scotia

“Elena Juris has put together an amazing book. It describes all types of modalities to enable the chronic sufferer to deal with the pain, discomfort, and apathy that accompany this disease. It offers tips for caregivers and suggestions on how to get appropriate treatment from physicians and other health-care professionals who really know what to do. Positive Options will give disheartened patients hope for better things to come and a light at the end of the dim, dark tunnel of CRPS.”
— Edward Carden, MD, MD, FRCPC, FACA, DipAAPM, director, Southern California Academic Pain Management and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Institute, University of Southern California

“Finally, what those living with CRPS have needed for so long—an inspirational, positive voice that speaks to us calmly, confidentially, wisely, and equally comforting.”
— Helen Small, president, PARC, Promoting Awareness of RSD and CRPS in Canada