DEPICTING CHRONIC PAIN: Chronic pain is the subject of the upcoming movie, Cake, starring Jennifer Aniston.

Chronic pain affects more people than cancer, diabetes, heart attack and stroke combined. It's estimated there are more than 100 million sufferers in the United States, costing the nation as much as $NZ816 billion a year in medical treatment and lost productivity.

Nearly one in five New Zealand adults experience chronic pain, according to the New Zealand Health Survey's 2013/14 findings. The survey found rates of chronic pain increase with age, affecting around a third of adults aged 75 and over.

The condition is even the focus of an upcoming movie, Cake, starring Jennifer Anniston as a woman struggling with chronic pain.

Chronic pain can be devastating, and a challenge to treat. As a mental health counsellor, I have seen it damage productive lives and tear families apart.

Pain sufferers often are misdiagnosed, misunderstood and miserable. Their friends and family can become worn out from listening to complaints. Their identities may be significantly altered because they cannot engage in activities they once enjoyed. Doctors get frustrated by the inability to provide a cure.

I have worked with people who had full, rich lives as corporate leaders, mothers, athletes and professors before their chronic pain. However, by the time I saw them they were isolated, over-medicated and depressed, and they believed their life was devoid of meaning.

Read more: No snake-oil quick fix can cure my pain

A DIFFERENT APPROACH CAN HELP

The good news is that chronic pain is treatable with the right blend of approaches. The traditional healing model take medications, rest, get better doesn't work with this illness. But there are ways to reduce pain and rebuild yourself.

Read the original here:
A different approach to chronic pain

BRADENTON --

A dog named Bear who was rescued from a burning home last weekend by firefighters with the Bradenton Fire Department has been reunited with his owners.

The German shepherd was found unconscious with labored breathing at a fire at 6:55 p.m. Saturday in a home in the 600 block of 32nd Street

Bear is now back with his loved ones, who have been waiting for days for his return from an animal clinic.

On Saturday night, Bradenton firefighters arrived at the 32nd Street home. They discovered flames and smoke coming from the home. Bear was still inside.

Firefighters were able to rescue Bear and give him oxygen on the front lawn. Bear has been at an animal clinic for treatment since the fire.

Owner Robert Fischbach said the dog shakes and is a little out of it but overall, he is doing better.

By the looks of things he seems to be getting better, so we want to remain hopeful. And its awesome just to have him back, he said.

The Fischbachs will be able to move back into their home eventually. However, the fire caused about $15,000 in damage.

So far, Bears vet bills are around $1,200.

See the rest here:
Dog rescued from fire reunited with owners

HOPETON, Va.- The Accomack County Sheriff's Office is looking for a dog that was reportedly stolen off a family's front lawn in the community of Hopeton.

Sheriff Todd Godwin said his office got a call at around 2:15 p.m. Sunday about people in a U-Haul truck taking a dog from a home on Matthews Road.

"I seen a U-Haul truck coming this way, it locked up the brakes, and they ran up in this yard right here, grabbed the dog, ran back to the U-Haul truck, opened the door, threw the dog in there, and got in the truck and left," said eye-witness Travis Shreavers.

Shreavers wasn't alone on Matthews Road Sunday afternoon. Sonny Hall attempted to question the people in the U-Haul truck about what they were doing with the dog.

"She looked right at me, turned it at me and just gunned it and ran right towards me. Which I had to jump to get out of the way, and when they did, they clipped my foot, ran over my foot with the vehicle," Hall said.

Police stopped the U-Haul later Sunday on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Two women are being questioned by police and the sheriff said charges could be coming.

Sunday's incident follows the high -profile case in October when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animalsin Accomack County took a dog of another front porch in Parksley.

Godwin said the women questioned Sunday are not members of PETA and the truck was empty when it was stopped. The sheriff believes the dog may have been transferred to another car before being taken across the bridge. So authorities are continuing to search for the dog. Anyone with information on the dog's whereabouts should call the Accomack County Sheriff's Office at (757) 787-1131.

Originally posted here:
Dog Stolen from Accomack County Family's Yard

By Michael N. Price

Kevin Heron, a 56-year-old Newtown Square resident, allegedly attempted to escape police in his vehicle after a patrol officer allegedly observed him drive away from district court on a suspended license, according to the West Whiteland Police Department. Police said he was leaving the district court after appearing for a hearing on two prior offenses that involved driving on a DUI-related suspended drivers license.

Knowing that Heron did not have a license, the patrol officer followed Heron and attempted to conduct a traffic stop after he left the court, but he allegedly refused to stop and instead sped away from the officer and into the Whiteland Business Park. During the escape attempt Heron allegedly drove over the lawn of a business and damaged one of the tires on his vehicle after driving over a curb, police said.

After the tire was damaged Heron was allegedly attempting to turn his vehicle and head in the opposite direction when he lost control and collided with a stationary police vehicle head on. After the collision other officers who had joined the pursuit were able to subdue Heron, police said.

The police officer who was involved in the collision was transported to Paoli Hospital by ambulance and later released after receiving treatment for a head injury. Police officials said the officer, who was not identified, will remain out of work until a specialist clears him to return for duty.

Police said the collision caused more than $6,000 in damage to the patrol car, a 2012 Dodge Charger.

Heron was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, driving under the influence and related charges and was taken to Chester County Prison after failing to post $300,000 cash bail.

Follow Daily Local News staff writer Michael N. Price on Twitter @MikePriceWrites and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/michaelnprice.

Kevin Heron, a 56-year-old Newtown Square resident, allegedly attempted to escape police in his vehicle after a patrol officer allegedly observed him drive away from district court on a suspended license, according to the West Whiteland Police Department. Police said he was leaving the district court after appearing for a hearing on two prior offenses that involved driving on a DUI-related suspended drivers license.

Knowing that Heron did not have a license, the patrol officer followed Heron and attempted to conduct a traffic stop after he left the court, but he allegedly refused to stop and instead sped away from the officer and into the Whiteland Business Park. During the escape attempt Heron allegedly drove over the lawn of a business and damaged one of the tires on his vehicle after driving over a curb, police said.

Read the rest here:
Fleeing West Whiteland man crashes into patrol car, injures officer

By Simone Sebastian January 9 at 7:51 PM

Simone Sebastianis an assistant editor of Outlook.

Cameron Clarkson was a 16-year-old football player when he suddenly landed in the middle of a sex crime investigation at his St. Paul, Minn., high school. Lawyers grilled him on the details of his sexual history. School officials, in a statement to the press, cited him for not invoking the schools sexual harassment policy and said he bragged to fellow students about what had happened. His car was vandalized with red-dyed tampons and smeared with peanut butter, to which he is fatally allergic, by an unknown assailant. The shape of a penis was burned into his front lawn with bleach.

People kept reminding me that I ruined that poor girls life, Clarkson says.

The poor girl was a teacher at his school. Gail Gagne, a 25-year-old basketball and lacrosse coach, was a full-time substitute teacher at Cretin-Derham Hall High School and a couple of months away from becoming a regular physical education instructor. One day, she offered to give Clarkson a ride home after he left the school gym, leading to what he describes as the first of a series of sexual encounters between them in 2008 in Gagnes car, in their homes, in hotels. He says their relationship ended two months later; another student told school officials about it the next spring.

Gagne was fired and charged with two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct with a student. But in the investigations that followed, Clarkson was treated more like the perpetrator than the victim. Gagne, meanwhile, faced an easier path in some ways. She denied any sexual contact with Clarkson but entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant does not admit guilt but recognizes that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict her. The deal reduced her charges to a fifth-degree gross misdemeanor with a one-year sentence, which was suspended a far lighter punishment than the possible four-year prison sentence for the felony charges she faced. (Gagnes lawyer still says there was no sexual contact.)

For male victims of sexual abuse, this is how it goes. Growing evidence shows that boys who are sexually preyed upon by older female authority figures suffer psychologically in much the same way that girls do when victimized by older men. But in schools, courts and law offices, male victims are treated openly with a double standard, according to interviews with a dozen experts in law, psychology and social work. Some say boys should get the same protective care that girls do; other people who work with these cases argue that male teens are driven by raging hormones and are only too happy to explore their new sexuality with older women. But all of the experts agree that the discrepancy in the treatment of victims of nonviolent sexual abuse by their high school teachers is real. And it shows: Male victims typically receive lower awards in civil cases, the experts say, and female perpetrators get lighter sentences.

There is a clear hierarchy in courtrooms, lawyers say. Cases involving a male teacher and a female student result in the most severe punishments and the highest damages. Los Angeles-based lawyer David Ring, whose firm Taylor & Ring represents plaintiffs in sexual abuse suits, has worked on hundreds of teacher-student cases and says its not unusual for those against male teachers to end with judgments of more than $1 million. In one example, a jury awarded $5.6million to a high school girl in a sexual abuse case involving her 40-year-old teacher. The teacher was convicted of a felony, sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay 40 percent of the civil damages to the student, who was 14 at the time of the encounters. (Chino Valley High School was ordered to pay the other 60 percent.)

But jurors and prosecutors dont have nearly the same outrage for abusive female teachers, Ring says: So what? Good for him. Thats how society looks at it. Male students, in his experience, rarely collect damages of more than $200,000. In November, Clarkson settled his case against Cretin-Durham Hall High School for $75,000. The case against Gagne settled for just $1.

Clarksons attorney, Sarah Odegaard, says her team made a strategic choice: They stood to win a larger award from the school, so they agreed to a token gesture from Gagne in lieu of a trial in which she would have denied the sexual relationship. In cases like this with an attractive, young female defendant jury bias doesnt work in favor of the victim, Odegaard says. Its not a bias we want to acknowledge, but we have to, she says. There have been some successes involving female teachers and coaches, but more often, you see lower verdicts.

View post:
He was abused by a female teacher, but he was treated like the perpetrator

Washington Post/Marvin Joseph

There are people who believe that I cannot possibly be a victim of abuse, says Cameron Clarkson, now 22.

Cameron Clarkson was a 16-year-old football player when he suddenly landed in the middle of a sex crime investigation at his Minnesota, US, high school.

Lawyers grilled him on the details of his sexual history. School officials, in a statement to the press, cited him for not invoking the school's sexual harassment policy and said he "bragged to fellow students about what had happened."

His car was vandalised with red-dyed tampons and smeared with peanut butter, to which he is fatally allergic, by an unknown assailant. The shape of a penis was burned into his front lawn with bleach.

"People kept reminding me that I ruined that poor girl's life," Clarkson says.

The "poor girl" was a teacher at his school. Gail Gagne, a 25-year-old basketball and lacrosse coach, was a full-time substitute teacher at Cretin-Derham Hall High School and a couple of months away from becoming a regular physical education instructor. One day, she offered to give Clarkson a ride home after he left the school gym, leading to what he describes as the first of a series of sexual encounters between them in 2008 in Gagne's car, in their homes, in hotels. He says their relationship ended two months later; another student told school officials about it the next spring.

Gagne was fired and charged with two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct with a student. But in the investigations that followed, Clarkson was treated more like the perpetrator than the victim. Gagne, meanwhile, faced an easier path in some ways. She denied any sexual contact with Clarkson but entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant does not admit guilt but recognises that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict her. The deal reduced her charges to a fifth-degree gross misdemeanour with a one-year sentence, which was suspended a far lighter punishment than the possible four-year prison sentence for the felony charges she faced. (Gagne's lawyer still says there was no sexual contact.)

For male victims of sexual abuse, this is how it goes. Growing evidence shows that boys who are sexually preyed upon by older female authority figures suffer psychologically in much the same way that girls do when victimised by older men. But in schools, courts and law offices, male victims are treated openly with a double standard, according to interviews with a dozen experts in law, psychology and social work.

Some say boys should get the same protective care that girls do; other people who work with these cases argue that male teens are driven by raging hormones and are only too happy to explore their new sexuality with older women. But all of the experts agree that the discrepancy in the treatment of victims of nonviolent sexual abuse by their high school teachers is real. And it shows: Male victims typically receive lower awards in civil cases, the experts say, and female perpetrators get lighter sentences.

Continued here:
Abused by female teacher, treated like the perpetrator

BLOWING ROCK, NC (WBTV) -

Bright sunshine did little to change the feel of winter across the mountains and foothills on Thursday.

"At 8:30 this morning is was minus three degrees," said Billie Rogers of the local Chamber of Commerce in Blowing Rock. "It's lovely," she said as she walked down the sidewalk, all bundled up.

Cold temperatures like this are expected from time to time in the mountains, and are even welcome with the Martin Luther King holiday coming up in just over a week.

Area ski resorts are using the cold temperatures to make as much snow as they can to be ready for the expected crowds.

Off the mountain, temperatures were in the single digits overnight. In Morganton, Brian Searcy at CBS Sports, a clothing and sports equipment store, turned a snow gun on on the front lawn of his business.

"We think we can make snow for the next 48 hours," he said Thursday morning. The store will be having a big sale on winter merchandise this weekend, and hopes to have enough snow for customers to try out some snowboards, and as an area for kids to play.

"This is just perfect weather for it," he said.

With another night of extreme cold, authorities are urging any travelers to be extra careful and be sure to have supplies with them in case they are stuck. They are also urged to have a fully-charged, working cell phone.

Rogers says the weather in Blowing Rock could always be worse. "In Minnesota it was minus 57 last night."

Read more:
Below zero in NC mountains, shivering continues

Mitsu Yasukawa/ Staff Photographer

Lee Albert stand in the doorway of his Fair Lawn home.

FAIR LAWN A Hartley Place resident who for years has been fighting the borough on tens of thousands of dollars in property maintenance violations was hit with his latest set of fines Wednesday: $21,600.

The grey house, which has cracked steps to its front door and scrubbed out red graffiti outside, also could have a potential buyer. For years Lee Albert, 65, has wanted to rid himself of the home and move out of the country, but has been held back by the legal issues surrounding the site. Some nearby neighbors also have been unhappy with the state of his property over the years.

Albert pleaded guilty Wednesday in Fair Lawn Municipal Court to all 18 pending violations he received over a six-day period in June. The violations are for blighted property, failure to cut weeds and grass, and excessive debris and rubbish on the property.

The fines comes out to $1,200 per violation, though the maximum possible fine per summons is $2,000, Fair Lawn Municipal Court Judge Steven C. Schechter said.

Municipal Prosecutor Marc Ramundo said Schechter found Albert guilty this summer of a similar set of violations dating from 2013, and he was fined the maximum amount per charge totaling about $30,000. Those fines remain unpaid. The tickets issued over the summer were for the same issues at the site, as Albert failed to fix his property, Ramundo said.

These were just the reissuance of the same summonses, Ramundo said. He added that it would be exhaustive to go to trial all over again.

Albert told the judge he was unable to take care of his property or hire an outside company to do so because he has been ill and traveling to Thailand for medical treatment over the summer.

I wasnt well enough to be here and take care of the property, said Albert, who also did not attend that first trial.

See the article here:
Fair Lawn man fined $21,600 for property maintenance violations

A Ten Commandments monument on the Oklahoma Capitol grounds that was destroyed by a man who drove into it was replaced Thursday with an exact replica.

Workers used a large crane to move the 2,400-pound granite monument onto its repaired base on a staircase landing outside the Capitol building.

"While the destruction of the original monument was tragic, this replacement is identical in every respect, and we look forward to it standing the test of time," said Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, whose family commissioned the original monument for $10,000.

Gary Mosier of Wilbert Memorials, which rebuilt the 6-foot-tall headstone-like monument, said the granite came from a quarry in South Dakota. The design, which is an exact replica of a monument at the Texas Capitol, was added at the company's facility in Kansas. Mosier said the company fronted the cost for the new monument, and Ritze said he's raising the money privately to reimburse the company.

The monument, which is at the center of a lawsuit, was smashed into pieces in October when someone drove a car across the Capitol lawn and crashed into it. A 29-year-old man was arrested the next day after he showed up at a federal building in Oklahoma City, spit on a picture of President Barack Obama and acknowledged destroying the monument, according to a police report. The man was admitted to a hospital for mental health treatment, and formal charges were never filed.

The original monument was erected in 2012 after a bill authorizing it was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat. A Norman man has sued to have it removed, saying it violates the state constitution's prohibition against using public property to support "any sect, church, denomination or system of religion." The case is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Other groups have also asked to erect their own monuments on the Capitol grounds, including a satanic group that wants to put up a 7-foot-tall statue that depicts Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard. A Hindu leader in Nevada, an animal rights group and the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have also made requests.

Link:
10 Commandments statue replaced at Oklahoma Capitol

AUBURN | An Auburn man accused of assaulting an officer after an alleged road rage incident may receive psychiatric treatment.

James Knight, of 9 Perry St., Apt. 1, appeared Tuesday morning in Cayuga County Court to face an an 11-count indictment charging him with striking an Auburn police officer in the face with a five-gallon bucket and threatening a couple with a collapsible baton.

The 28-year-old defendant sat quietly during his arraignment and when a veterans outreach worker met with Judge Mark Fandrich on his behalf.

After a short conference, Fandrich remanded Knight to the Cayuga County Jail without bail explaining that Knight is seeking to be admitted for psychiatric care at a secure Veterans Affairs' treatment facility near Saranac Lake. If Knight makes it through the admission process, Fandrich said he would consider releasing Knight for treatment.

Quietly nodding after hearing Fandrich's decision, Knight was escorted out of the courtroom.

The alleged incident that ended in Knight's arrest occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6.

According to police, Knight followed another vehicle to Generations Bank on North Seward Avenue. Reportedly angry about a traffic-related incident, Knight allegedly pulled up next to the vehicle and started to shout at the passengers.

Police said Knight then got out of his car armed with a baton and hit the hood of the couple's car with the baton and his fists.

When police arrived on scene, Knight was reportedly driving away from the bank.

Knight was pulled over near his Perry Street home, where police said he refused to stay in his vehicle. A struggle ensued outside the vehicle escalating when Knight allegedly hit the officer in the face with a bucket.

See the original post here:
Auburn man accused of striking officer with bucket seeks treatment from VA