iPain Community Impact Award was created to recognize media such as feature-length films, books and documentaries that change the pain community for the benefit of the patients who make up the heart and soul. We have chosen to recognize 2 impacting media projects and their leaders-creators for their positive impact on the chronic pain community in 2021.
The award recipients will be honored live at the International Pain Summit on November 12, 2021 held virtually. The recipients will be recognized in the event program as well as receive an award certificate and coverage in iPain Living magazine Winter 2022. Thank you to all our 2021 award recipients for all you do to put a spotlight on chronic pain diseases and other chronic pain conditions.
Mia Maysack is a chronic pain patient, author and advocate for pain & mental health. She is the Founder of Keepin’ Our Heads Up and Peace & Love Holistic Health Wellness. Mia is works hard in her community as a life advocate bettering society in many ways Her efforts have been honored in the past as a multi-year finalist to the iPain Hero of Hope awards and WEGO Health Best Kept Secret, WEGO Health Patient Leader Hero, and Special Advocacy Ward, and NHF Headache Hero. She has served as a board member, presenter, volunteer and patient voice for many organizations and industry partners over the years. Mia recently created a new booklet, “A Guide to Reclaim Your Mind: Mimi’s Mini Migraine Manual” for patients with migraine and headache diseases. Through her own organization, she is providing accessible resources to those living with pain, illness or hurt of any kind- regardless of financial circumstance, free of charge. In Mia’s A Guide to Reclaim Your Mind, she covers tips and tools that people can use daily to help their life. Options on thinking, understanding depression is a symptom. She shows the reader ways to heal the mind with a groundbreaking science-based approach. The guide offers an action plan readers can use to gain mindful healing and feel more like themselves while living with other chronic pain conditions. This guide is a peaceful and loving read takes the reader on a journey of self-empowerment for transformation that goes far beyond symptom relief. This is why we have chosen Mia Maysack as a 2021 iPain Community Impact Award recipient.
Directed and stared in by Mindy Bledsoe, The In-Between is an American road trip film. The film follows two women who set out across the American West in search of resolution of past pains and an understanding of what friendship and family truly means. Mindy is featured in the Summer 2021, iPain Living Magazine cover story and was a past finalist for the iPain Hero of Hope award for her efforts to raise awareness of CRPS and chronic pain. The film stars’ Jennifer Stone and Mindy Bledsoe. Stone plays Mads, a young woman with Type 1 diabetes whose mother disappeared when she was a child. Mindy Bledsoe plays Junior, a 40-year-old woman who suffers from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and whose sister, Veronica, was killed in a car accident. Musician Ansley Rimmer, the vocalist for the bands Super Water Sympathy and Hydrogen Child, provided the film’s soundtrack and plays Veronica. The film premiered at the 2019 Twister Alley Film Festival in Woodward, Oklahoma and went live on multiple streaming platforms in 2021. This is why we have chosen Director Mindy Bledsoe as a 2021 iPain Community Impact Award recipient.