Versus: How Can We Help You?

A comic about the hard parts of pain and medical care, and the free tools that make them easier.

Babies & Toddlers (0-2) Kids (3-11) Tweens & Teens (12+) About the Meg Foundation Comfort positions Getting ready for a procedure Healthcare Providers How pain works Needle Pokes Acute Pain Chronic Pain Procedural Pain About the Meg Foundation Comfort positions Getting ready for a procedure How pain works Needle pokes Pain Management

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Also available in: Español

About This Resource

Freakouts vs. action plans. Overwhelmed vs. coming in prepared. Scary vs. inspiring. This comic puts the hard parts of pain and medical care side by side with the tools that make them easier, for kids, families, and providers.

It starts with the basics: pain actually happens in your brain (weird, but true!). Pain is your body’s alarm system, and sometimes it sends that signal when it isn’t needed or helpful, like during a medical procedure. Get the full story in our Understanding Pain series, starting with Part One: The Basics of Pain.

How To Use This Resource

Share it! It’s a quick way to show families, patients, and colleagues that real solutions exist, and to point them our way. Our resources are FREE, easy to access, and ready whenever you need them.

Who Is This For

Kids, families, and care teams navigating pain and medical anxiety.

Downloads

Understanding Pain Handout

Knowing how pain works is key to learning how to prevent and manage it. This handout breaks it all down to make it easier for patients and providers.

Downloads

Comfort Positions: A Guide for Parents and Healthcare Professionals

This guide shows you how to keep kids safe, and help them feel supported, during medical procedures.

Podcast

AAP On Call Podcast: Managing Fear of Needles

Dr. Jody Thomas and David Becker join the AAP’s podcast to talk through strategies for taking the pain and fear out of vaccinations.

Book

Provider ToolKit

This interactive eBook makes it easy to learn all the ways our free pain management resources can be used to make life easier for you and your patients.

Article

World Health Organization: Reducing pain at time of vaccination position paper

This position paper, released in September 2015 reviews the research, and outlines the recommendations for managing vaccination pain.

Blog Post

Doctors Can Have Needle Fear Too! Helpful Strategies From a Needle Phobic Doctor

Dr. Kevin M. Windisch is a pediatrician at Girls to Women/Young Men’s Health in Dallas, Texas. He’s spent over 25 treating patients and is well-loved by both patients and colleagues.

Explore All of Our Resources »

A Note About Keeping This Free

Good pain care should be a right, not a privilege.

We’ve spent our careers treating pain and medical anxiety, and we know that comfort and control come from putting the power where it belongs: in your hands. Everything here is free and open source by design. No parent should have to pay to learn how to get their child through a vaccine or a bad headache. No provider should have to hunt for what they need to do their job well. Hundreds of thousands of people have used Meg tools, and not one of them has ever been asked to pay.

But free still costs something.

We rely on the generosity of people like you to keep it that way. It takes about 1 in 30 of us, each giving $15 a month, to keep these tools available for free. If they helped you and you’re able, $15 a month keeps these resources available the next time you or another family need them.

Thanks for being here. Whether you are able to give or not, I’m so grateful a kid somewhere has you in their corner.

— Dr. Jody, Founder and CEO

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Meg Foundation is a 501(c)(3). Gifts are tax-deductible. Secure Givebutter checkout.