Anna Raymann

Anna Kirschbaum Raymann (1952) Anna is born and raised in the Netherlands. She got her degree in physical therapy at the University of Amsterdam. She worked as a physiotherapist until the age of 40, when her chronic back pains prevented her to work any longer. She also had to drop her favorite sports due to her increasing health problems. By then her hobby writing grew more and more important, as you can always write, even when you're lying in bed. She started blogging about her life of dealing with chronic pain and her health, which was both deteriorating and stopping her from leading the life she wanted. Despite it all, she managed to achieve her dream of working in the Olympic Village at London 2012. She wrote about her experiences in London in a popular column in two large newspapers in The Netherlands. This column and her blog would later become the basis for her book about this very special year, which started with the worst winter, but ended in the best summer of her life: "Limiet gehaald," (About the very special year in the life of a chronic pain patient.) This book ended up being read by many chronic pain patients, who wrote Anna that they recognized her story and that it inspired and encouraged them. She learned that, just like her, half of chronic pain patients find that their social lives deteriorate as a result of the pain and that they often find this even worse than the pain itself. With her background as a physiotherapist, and her experiences as a chronic pain patient, she was intrigued by this problem and determined to find the answer and a solution to reduction of the social network, due to the pain. She started to interview over a hundred other CPPs and the people around them. She studied and read as much as she could about this social aspect of chronic pain. She wrote down everything she learned in the book: 'Lieve Help!' (Literally translated: Strong Help!, but in Dutch also an expression meaning 'O my God!'), released in the Netherlands in March 2014 and in Belgium in June 2014. The book was an instant success, with only 4/5 star reviews, not only by professionals, such as pain doctors, psychologists and medical journalists, but also by the many chronic pain patients who've read it. The book is now available in English as a series of three e-books on Amazon: Coping with Chronic Pain, a Team Effort! Book 1: For You and Your Partner Book 2: For You and Your Kids Book 3: For You and Your Family & Friends www.supportforchronicpain.com