Books and apps for living well with chronic pain.

Managing Life with Chronic Pain · Pendleton B. Wickersham, MD, and Louise Locker, LCSW

You have been told to manage your pain. Nobody has told you how to live with it. That gap is where most people living with chronic pain spend years — the diagnosis arrives, the prescriptions start, the appointments stack up, and the daily work of actually living with the condition falls to you.

Dr. Wickersham is a practicing rheumatologist who has spent his career in that gap with his patients, and who has lived with ankylosing spondylitis since he was 22. This book is what he wishes he had time to say in every appointment. Written for people with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and other autoimmune and chronic pain conditions.

Grounded in the biopsychosocial model, it shows how your body, your mind, and the life around you all shape how much pain you feel — and how each one offers a way to turn the volume down. Not a to-do list to finish, but a way of living well with pain, one step at a time.

Available in paperback and for Kindle

Pendleton B. Wickersham, MD, and Louise Locker, LCSW

Reading about managing chronic pain and actually managing it are two different things. The book helps you understand; the workbook is where the lessons take root and become yours. Every chapter matches a chapter of the book, so you are never left wondering which exercise goes with what you just read.

Every exercise is approached through three lenses — patience, self-acceptance, and honesty — which turn a list of activities into a way of being.

• Guided reflections that surface the patterns you have not noticed
• Trackers for pain, fatigue, sleep, and flares — turning scattered impressions into information you can bring to your doctor
• Pacing plans built around your real energy, not an ideal day
• Scripts for the hard conversations with family, employers, and clinicians
• Flare planning you do while you are well, so the decisions are already made when you are not

The pages are yours to write on. There are no right answers and nothing to score.

iOS and Android

A comprehensive workbook companion for navigating life’s most challenging moments, developed in consultation with mental health professionals.

• 25 interactive modules — guided reflections at your own pace
• Your own plan — your workbook answers become your plan, and Flare Mode reads your Flare-Up Plan back to you when you need it
• Health tools — track medications, log symptoms, monitor well-being
• AI program guide — grounded in the full book and workbook, and names the chapter or module to turn to, so you can find what you need without searching the pages
• Emergency guidance — quick access to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
• Private by default — responses saved locally on your device

Free to download · 7-day free trial, then $3.99/month

iOS and Android

A flare tracker first. Flares are the thing that actually changes your treatment, and they are the hardest thing to describe accurately eight weeks later at an appointment. RheumCompanion captures one while it is happening — severity, duration, what preceded it — and turns a season of scattered impressions into a record your rheumatologist can read in a minute.

• Flare tracking — log a flare as it happens, with severity and duration, while the details are still accurate
• Daily symptoms and joint pain — pain, fatigue, and stiffness in a few taps, on the days you can manage it
• Diet and symptom correlation — see what lines up with your flares over enough days to mean something
• Medications and biologic infusion dates — your regimen and schedule alongside the symptom record, so changes and flares sit on the same timeline
• Lab history — results kept together, where a trend is visible
• Appointment summary — export a 30-day report to hand your care team at the start of a visit
• Disease encyclopedia and medication reference — 13 conditions and 7 drug classes, drawn from FDA package inserts and PubMed research
• RheumBot, interaction checker, and clinical trial finder — sourced answers, interactions grouped by severity, and what is recruiting for your condition

Free to download · 7-day free trial, then $6.99/month · cancel anytime

iOS and Android

A match-3 puzzle game built from the ground up for people living with chronic illness and chronic pain — and for anyone who wants a game that respects their energy. Genuinely engaging puzzles, with every pressure mechanic deliberately removed. Nothing is locked behind a purchase: all 72 levels across nine worlds are playable free, start to finish.

• A rest-friendly streak — it counts the days you show up, forgives rest days, and losing never breaks it
• The Zen Garden — a no-fail sanctuary mode. No moves, no timer, no losing
• Tiny Wins — one-minute levels for low-energy days that still count toward your daily goal
• A gentle boost — struggling with a level? The game quietly offers a little extra room, no judgment
• Real encouragement — a line from The Resilient Path after each level, saved to your Comfort Journal
• The Calm Corner — guided box breathing with rain and wave soundscapes
• Comfort & Access — larger gems, tap-only controls, and a gentle battle clock that adds time to boss levels

Free to play, start to finish · optional Soothe Plus ($3.99/month or $34.99/year, 7-day free trial) adds unlimited lives and comfort perks — every level is playable without it

A gentle sky-garden game · Android, iPhone and iPad coming soon

A small island in the sky that grows at your pace. Lumina is a quiet garden game that adapts to how you feel each day — plant, explore, and solve unhurried puzzles when you have the energy, or let the rain fall and simply rest when you do not. Nothing is lost by being away.

• Plays to your energy — choose a full day, a lighter day with hints always on, or a rest day when the garden tends itself
• Unhurried puzzles — wind chimes with no wrong notes, lanterns to light, and fireflies that are slow on purpose
• Nine islands to find — from the Cloud Garden to the Crystal Caverns, and a Moon Garden that only opens to people who have rested
• Comfort settings — low light in one tap, screen warmth, softened sound, bigger buttons, and a left-handed layout
• No pressure, no ads — no streaks, no timers, no accounts and no tracking

Free to play · optional one-time purchases only, no subscriptions

A daily logic puzzle · iOS and Android

One logic puzzle a day, the same for every player, and a ruined estate that rises as you solve it. You are the Thirteenth Warden of a house that stands in nine worlds at once, and Rune Weaving is how you put it back together. Every puzzle is proven solvable by reasoning alone, with one answer and no guessing.

• The daily rite — free every day, forever, gentle on Mondays and fierce by the weekend
• A house that shows its progress — eight chambers and 68 levels, each one visible on a map you can pan and zoom
• Start gently — five short lessons, and early rites that go easy on you
• Five diversions and a story — quick minigames, and thirty pieces of lore read aloud
• Honest about money — you cannot buy Aether, and nothing on sale makes the puzzles easier
• No account, no server — your progress stays on your phone

Free to play with ads · optional Warden’s Patronage removes them ($3.99/month, $29.99/year, or $24.99 once)