Pain Awareness Month 2026 | | |
Dear U.S. Pain Foundation community,
Pain Awareness Month may be 30 days. Living with pain is not.
For millions of people, pain is part of everyday life, throughout the year and often for years or a lifetime. That is why the work of raising awareness, sharing trusted information, building connection, and making sure people with pain are heard cannot end with September.
This month, we came together around one theme:
All Ages. Countless Diagnoses. Millions of Stories.
One Movement.
Each week explored a different part of the pain experience, connected by #OneVoiceForPain.
Revisit some of the stories, resources, conversations, and tools we shared, and explore what comes next.
| | Stay involved beyond September. | | |
Pain Awareness Month lasts 30 days. But the need for awareness, information, support, and action exists 365 days a year.
Join a peer support group. Share a trusted resource. Tell your story. Take part in advocacy. Attend a webinar. Learn something new about pain. Or simply help someone feel seen, heard, and believed.
Our new guide shares simple ways to stay connected and involved throughout the year.
DOWNLOAD: WAYS TO STAY INVOLVED →
| | Pain can affect people at every stage of life. | | |
Pain can affect people at every stage of life. The challenges may look different across childhood, adulthood, and older age, but every stage deserves understanding and support.
7 Voices. 7 Ages. 1 Message.
People ages 10 to 77 share what living with pain, or caring for someone with pain, can look like at different stages of life. READ THE ARTICLE →
When Caregiving Roles Change
Ellen Lenox Smith reflects on changing caregiving roles as she and her husband age. READ THE BLOG →
Pacing for Kids & Teens
A free guide to help young people understand when to keep going, slow down, or stop and rest. DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE →
Finding a Pace That Works for You
A practical guide to help adults balance activity and rest, and use their energy more intentionally. DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE →
| | Different diagnoses. Many shared experiences. | | |
Pain can be connected to many diseases, injuries, and health conditions. The diagnoses may differ, but many challenges are shared: being believed, navigating care, making daily adjustments, and finding treatments that help.
Different Diagnoses, Same Struggles
Explore 15 experiences that connect people across pain conditions.
READ THE ARTICLE →
Explore Pain Conditions
Find information and resources for migraine, gout, neuropathic pain, and more. EXPLORE CONDITION-SPECIFIC RESOURCES →
Boundaries Without Guilt
Alina Savulescu reflects on setting boundaries and protecting her limits while living with chronic pain. READ THE BLOG →
Building Your Toolbox: Crafting Healing Narratives
Christie Cox explores reflection, writing, and deciding how, when, or whether to share your story. WATCH THE RECORDING →
Protecting Disability Benefits: Understanding Routine Reviews
Learn what routine disability reviews may involve, why documentation matters, and how to prepare. WATCH THE RECORDING →
Protecting Disability Benefits: High-Risk Reviews & Investigations
Learn what can trigger closer review or investigation of disability benefits and what people receiving benefits should know. WATCH THE RECORDING →
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Numbers can help us understand the scale of chronic pain. Stories help us understand the lives behind those numbers.
9 Lessons We’ve Learned By Listening to Thousands of People With Pain
What years of listening has taught us about being believed, having options, accessing care, and feeling represented.
READ THE ARTICLE →
Frustrating. Lonely. Exhausting.
See how people with pain described their journeys in just three words.
SEE THE WORD CLOUD →
More Than Tired
Nikhil Sadavarte reflects on the exhaustion that can come with chronic pain. READ THE BLOG →
Lonely Hearts
Molly Kamper shares a poem about pain, isolation, and connection.
READ THE POEM →
Sources of Hope
Hear from people with pain about how they keep moving forward, or why hope can be difficult to find. READ THE ARTICLE →
Find Connection
Sometimes, adding your voice starts with finding a space where you feel heard. FIND PEER SUPPORT →
| | Taking action: Putting the pieces together. | | |
One Movement is about bringing lived experience into research, care, policy, and support.
8 Ways Better Policy Could Improve Life With Chronic Pain
Explore how policy can influence pain research, treatment access, coverage, data, and care.
READ THE ARTICLE →
Making Pain Research Easier to Understand
A conversation between people with lived experience and researchers about making pain research clearer, more accessible, and more useful. WATCH THE RECORDING →
When Pain Walks Into the Room
Tom Norris explores how shifts in communication can help patients and clinicians better understand one another. READ THE BLOG →
It’s Just Thursday
Kari McBride shares the challenges of an ordinary day in the life of a parent and child both living with pain. READ THE BLOG →
Speak Up in Your Community
Tips for writing an op-ed or letter to the editor and sharing your experience. DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE →
Take Action on Pain Policy
Explore current opportunities to make your voice heard. SIGN UP FOR ADVOCACY ALERTS →
| | #OneVoiceForPain across the country. | | |
Throughout September, U.S. Pain Foundation brought lived experience into conversations at PAINWeek, on Capitol Hill, and in local communities.
Across the country, advocates also helped secure nearly 20 Pain Awareness Month proclamations, bringing greater recognition to chronic pain in their own communities. Check out all the proclamations here.
Different settings. Different audiences. One shared goal: ensuring the realities of life with pain are seen, heard, and understood.
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Pain Awareness Month ends.
The work continues.
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For people living with pain, October 1 is not an ending.
Pain does not follow an awareness-month calendar. The need to be believed does not disappear. The search for answers, treatment, support, and connection does not stop. And neither can our work.
At U.S. Pain Foundation, we will keep listening. We will keep providing information and support. We will keep bringing lived experience into research, care, and policy conversations. And we will keep working toward a better future for people living with pain.
To everyone who read, shared, attended, spoke up, told a story, helped someone else, or simply took time to learn more this September: thank you.
Pain Awareness Month may last 30 days. #OneVoiceForPain belongs to all 365.
LET’S CHANGE PAIN.
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Thank you,
Nicole Hemmenway
CEO, U.S. Pain Foundation
| | HELP KEEP THIS WORK GOING | | Your support helps U.S. Pain Foundation provide free education, resources, peer support, advocacy, and opportunities for the voices of people with pain to be heard throughout the year. | | |
The U.S. Pain Foundation would like to thank its 2026 Corporate Council for supporting Pain Awareness Month.
Eli Lilly | Kenvue | Lexicon Pharmaceuticals | Sobi | Tonix | Tris Pharma | Vertex Pharmaceuticals | Viatris
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