Invisible Illness Week Joins American Pain Foundation to Endorse the Virtual March on Washington

September is Pain Awareness Month. Pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined, and is a leading cause of disability in the United States. Yet, it remains woefully undertreated and misunderstood, resulting in needless suffering .

This September, the National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week campaign is joining with the American Pain Foundation to endorse the Virtual March on Washington to raise awareness about the barriers to accessing appropriate and effective pain management and the desperate need to improve pain care for all Americans.

Go to www.painfoundation.org/virtualmarch to participate in the march.

Opportunities to engage include:  writing your legislator, watching condition specific videos, chatting with others affected by pain and adding your voice to the 10,000 Voices campaign. You can also use resources in the PAM Advocacy Toolkit to host an event in your local community or get tips and templates for writing a letter to the editor. Go to www.APFActionNetwork.org to see how. Tell YOUR story. Join us to create change!

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• Creating Pain Awareness Through Photography (invisibleillnessweek.com)
• Canada proudly hosts international pain experts at the World Congress on Pain (newswire.ca)
• Rest Ministries Sponsors Invisible Illness Week (chronicillnesspaindevotionals.wordpress.com)

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Add Our Button to Your Site

Looking for an easy way to let others know about II Week? Put our animated button on your web site. Code is below that you can just copy and paste.

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How YOU Can Make a Difference

There are lots of ways to get involved in National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. In fact, just spreading the word that such a week exists seems to be therapeutic to some of us who are tired of hearing, “Are you still sick?”

We are always updating our web site under the category What to Do – How to Help, but if you are looking for a fast list, here are some things you can do that will all help us a lot! Most have links with more details if it’s not self-explanatory.

Bloggers or Writers

• Write a blog post for our web site as a guest blogger. It can be something fresh or something you have posted before.
• Submit a blog post you wrote in the past or just yesterday as a guest blogger here on our web site.
• Join Bloggers Unite to commit to blogging on your own blog about invisible illness.
• Don’t forget that on our front page we have a button, widgets, all kinds of things you can add to your blog.

Do You Twitter?

• Follow us @invisibleillwk
• Retweet our tweets to let more people know about II Week
• Use the hashtag #iiwk10 when tweeting
• Tweet out our 20 Things to Say to a Chronically Ill Person and 20 Things to NOT Say to a Chronically Ill Person
  
• Twitter 25 facts about illness in 25 days
  
• Get a Twibbon for your profile photo

Are You on Facebook?

• Join our cause & tell your friends and family The easy address to rememberis http://www.InvisibleIllnessOnFacebook.com
• Whatever you see on our web site that you like… scroll down to the share button and share it on Facebook. It’s easy and helps more than practically anything else you can do to help!
• Ask your friends to join the cause.
• Give a donation to the cause (We are aiming for $1900 to help us cover costs.)

Pray!

• We have a prayer group jut for the week – join us if you’d like.

Do You Have a Web Site?

• How to Put II Week Blog on Your Site
• Add our button to your site!

Buy Some Goodies to Help us Financially and Also Spread the Word

• We have some great II Week items to help you share about your passion for the cause.

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We’ve Joined Facebook!

Okay, so frankly I am still figuring out exactly all that Facebook offers, but some of you are way ahead and me, so maybe you can help us along.

We are listed as a “cause” and of course, our cause is National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week (I know… you’re shocked, huh?)

So head on over and sign up for the II Week Facebook “cause.”

Together, we can make a difference (and I really mean together… because I need your help! Anyone a Facebook expert who would like to help me out here?)

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Email Your Pastor or Clergy About II Week

Here is a template of an email for your pastor that you can cut and paste and personalize about why you think II Week is important and how the church should get involved.

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