Unlocking Pain's Secrets

COVER STORY

The question for doctors: How do you spell relief?

The alarm rings at 7, and she reaches for the pillbox. It is the first act of her day. Her suffering, like the box itself, is divided into four spaces, each with its allotment of pink, white, brown and blue pills. "The pain is always there," she says; "there are just different levels of it. "First there is the "daily, hard, getting-around pain." This constant pain of rheumatoid arthritis has been with Maureen Hemmis, 37, since she was 18 years old. Then there is the variable pain:...

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