From November 6-12, we will be joining together with our partners across the country during National Pain Awareness Week (NPAW) to raise awareness of chronic pain and call for action to make pain a priority.

The social media campaign brings together leaders in pain advocacy, research, and health care, with people with pain and their families to support the recommendations in Health Canada’s An Action Plan for Pain in Canada. The landmark report outlines the targeted actions necessary to improve outcomes for chronic pain and to reduce its impact on families, communities, and society.

Please join us to create dialogue and draw attention to chronic pain this National Pain Awareness Week by using Pain Canada’s social media toolkit, and by adding your voice to the conversation using the #NPAW2022 and #PrioritizePain hashtags. The toolkit includes ready-to-use social media messages and graphics on a range of pain-related topics. Last year, hundreds of organizations people across Canada took part in the campaign, generation 2.3 million impressions on social media.

Together, we will build a future where no one is alone with pain.

Pain BC welcomes you to an educational webinar and Q&A with Dr. Karen Ng, who joins us from Fraser Health Authority where she is an Opioid Stewardship Clinical Pharmacy Specialist. Dr. Ng will be presenting pain-specific education around medications, as well as answering your questions.

Are you interested in volunteering with Pain BC’s Coaching for Health program? We are currently seeking volunteers to participate in our upcoming training session. The training will be approximately 40 hours long, with a mix of self-guided online training and facilitated (live) online training sessions. The full training schedule is available here.

If you are interested and able to commit to the training according to the timeline, please complete our application form. Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. If you have any questions, please contact us at coachingforhealth@painbc.ca.

The Canadian Ehlers Danlos Conference is being held virtually on November 5, 2022, from 8:45AM to 4:00PM EST. This ILC Foundation event will cover topics such as genetic updates in our understanding of EDS, fostering better relationships between health care providers and patients, and knowledge mobilization. The conference is free to attend for people living with pain.

The SickKids Pain Centre's annual conference this year is during National Pain Awareness Week. This conference is in partnership with the Garry Hurvitz Centre for Brain & Mental Health. The event will present topics such as mental health and pain, knowledge mobilization, health equity, and pain in the developing brain. The conference is free to attend for people living with pain.

Parents, do you have a child aged 11-18 with physical or emotional symptoms that interfere with their life? Researchers from BC Children's Hospital and the University of Victoria are looking to understand how children with different symptoms process emotions. The study takes place online and involves a brief Zoom meeting, followed by your child completing two questionnaires and a 25-minute computer game. Participants receive a $25 Starbucks gift card for their time.

If you live with pain, does it change throughout the day? The CircaPain research team is studying how time of day impacts pain and wants to hear about your experience. This study is open to all adults who have had persistent pain for more than three months. Learn more and take the survey on CircaPain's website: circapain.ca.

Chronic pain can run in families. However, many children manage to avoid intergenerational pain. The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans and the University of Calgary want to better understand how pain can be transferred to children from their parents, and which factors affect this in a veteran/military population. Veterans, serving members and their children will be sent an online survey which will take 30-45 minutes to complete. Participants will each receive a $15 gift card. To learn more, contact the research team at abcpainlab@ucalgary.ca or 403-210-7846.

As many people with chronic pain know, pain can have an impact on life goals. The author of this article shares how she coped with her goals changing as a result of chronic illness.