Discussion Topics

1. What do we do to prevent pain (nutrition exercise etc)?
What do we do to control pain when it's there (different painkillers, warm water bottles)? For this meeting those who like could bring in their medications or other pain relief help (TENS etc).

2. Relationships? How do we deal with them and what are our fears? (work relationships, spouses, friends, family)?
Mood swings, emotional support? Does the Endo diagnosis effect your relationships with people? What can we do to prevent conflicts/misunderstandings? Do we educate everyone or not? How do you interact when you are in pain? (angry, sad, isolation, being part despite pain?)

3. Traditional treatments?
What are our experiences/feelings? How do we cope with surgery? Hormonal treatments etc?

4. Alternative treatments?
Are there any? Has anyone tried them? Heard about them? Did they work? (physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, stress reduction, herbs, qi-gong, exercise, yoga, meditation, nutrition).

5. Professional carriers?
What is our experience in the professional world? What can we do to make our bosses/companies understand? How can we work better? What rights do we have if any? Can we adjust our carriers to function better with our lives?

6. Stress?
Does it factor in? What is your experience? How much stress did Endo itself add? How do we address it?

7. Solutions?
What solutions do we see? What have we tried? What worked/didn't work?

8. Infertility?
Adoption, IVF? What are our feelings/experiences?

9. Related health problems
What have we experienced? Migraine, allergies, fibromyolga, candida.

10. Self-image.
Do we feel handicapped? How do we deal with this? What do you do, seven things, to help yourself feel more whole/when in pain or not, in relation to your body and people around you. Five things to not do.

11. Bringing partners/family members or a close friend to a meeting.
On this popular special occasion meeting we open up the meeting to our loved once. We each bring one friend/partner or family member who is a close part of our life and we let these members discuss how endo has effected them.
In advance, let your partner prepare 3 things he or she has experienced as the most difficult for them related to endo. Also, write down 3 possible solutions/coping strategies that they felt have worked to solve specific endo related problems. This kind of meeting can feel very uplifting to all partners of endo sufferers as they learn new coping tools and see that they are not alone.

12. Bring your journal
We can bring a short part of our journal (for us who use one) and read it loud to the group. If you don't have a journal, you can just tell a short story of a particular day in your endo-life.

14. The emotional aspect of endo.
Hormonal mood swings. Feelings of despair. The loss of health. Loss of dream jobs/carrieers. Loss of fertility. Loss of partners. Loss of internal organs. Loss of perceived femininity? Loss of life as we knew it. Loss of control. How do we cope with this loss and are there any gains?

15. Depression
What do you do to keep going? What is fun? Motivation?

16. Coping with chronic pain.
Write down 5 things you have tried that didn't work. Write down 5 things that you do or have done that worked for you.

17. Story Telling
Telling our Endo stories is the fundamental backbone of the support group meeting. Many of us have experienced prolonged trauma caused by our endo. For us to be able to put words on what we've been through is very healing indeed.
This is also a way for everyone to introduce themselves to each other. Usually the first two meetings are dedicated to story tellings and whenever someone new comes to a meeting they get to tell their endo story to the group regardless of the day's topic.


Please feel free to email me ideas and suggestions for additional topics!
info@ravepolice.com