Pain is Really Strange

I thought it was going to dig deeper. For patients should be fine, already using it and the ilustrations are very nice. I would recommended, but the format it’s like a comic book.

Good explanations of what the human body does when experiencing pain – and why chronic pain is so difficult to treat. Sadly, the book focuses primarily on treating chronic pain through education and attitude, insisting chronic pain is 'like a very bad habit' (complete with cigarette dangling from a cartoon pain-sufferer's mouth). “Understanding pain is a very good way of relieving pain,” the author maintains. Appearantly, pain is danger, and “if your brain thinks you're safe, your pain will go down.”Gosh, 16 years of chronic pain and all I had to do was convince my brain that I'm “safe” and I'd be all fine again. Who knew? You see, my perception of reality is created by my brain's neurons, and although “reality is a tricky business,” I must explain to my neurons they should ignore the messages from the damaged nerves that I'm being threatened...But, wait! Four more pages, and suddenly pain-killers are not the threat we've been conditioned to believe. Descartes is now the bad guy for influencing physicians' beliefs about how much pain medication we should receive. “The evidence that tissue pathology does not explain chronic pain is overwhelming,” quotes the author, who cites over-reliance on MRI scans and X-rays as a significant problem for chronic pain patients. “You cannot measure pain,” he adds, “but pain is always real to the person suffering.”Sadly, he doesn't explain what this really means to the person trying to find a physician willing to accept a new patient suffering from chronic pain. Doctors have begun refusing to treat patients who they fear will require long-term opiate prescriptions. This may be due to the physician's own beliefs about drug-seeking behavior or his clinic's standards of treatment that make writing opiate prescriptions difficult and time-consuming.It is common practice for medical centers to require patients receiving pain medication to undergo random urinalysis tests, whether or not the individual has a history of drug abuse. Many doctors don't want to have to defend their patient care decisions before a board of inquiry on a regular basis, so refuse to accept those with chronic pain.Maybe I expected too much out of what amounts to a comic (sorry, “illustrated”) book. But high-quality paper aside, I was hoping to see suggestions for coping with the chronic pain that many of us will live with the rest of our lives. I wanted to see a discussion about finding a pain specialist who understood the complexity of chronic pain and kept up with recent findings and research on the topic. I'd be very interested in learning how chronic pediatric pain is treated, when physicians live in horror of addicting the very young to the amount of opiates that will allow them to survive and retain their sanity when faced with unbearable agony and the terror that accompanies endless pain. I was hoping to read about how age and gender affects pain treatment, and why a young mother might receive different medication than an elderly man.Pain Is Really Strange provides an excellent overview of the human nervous system and why it makes us feel pain. It discusses what chronic pain is and what often causes it. It should have stopped there, concluding with a list of suggested additional reading. Or it could have changed the format and looked at current chronic pain issues, including prescription opiates, street drugs and cannabis use – and the DEA's attitudes toward all three. While the author admits “There is no one answer that fits everyone”, he then wanders into 'speculative' territory by asking “Can you explore intense sensations with curiosity rather than fear?”Yes, he really did ask that. I'm guessing this well-meaning man does not suffer from the endless drag on his life that chronic pain creates. He's never felt the bitterness and anger that comes with continual low-grade suffering which suddenly bangs into high gear without warning. He hasn't watched his life change and friends fall away as his body betrays him. He's been spared literally begging his physician for relief, and found himself turning to street drugs when legitimate help was not forthcoming.He means well, he really does. So I recommend this book for its educational value about the central nervous system and the brain. But actually reducing that pain? I took off two stars for avoiding the elephant (legal prescriptions, cannabis and street drugs) in the living room. People living with relentless pain need to hear more than “retrain your mind”.

Put this in our waiting room at the physical therapy office and patients LOVE IT!!

My cranio-sacral therapist recommended this short graphic explanation of pain. I suffer from chronic pain and it helps to know there are ways to cope. In simple drawings and easy to understand text, I found hope for my situation.

I have already used what I learned from this book to help me manage my pain better. I could not be happier about this book. Thank you!

Excellent book!!! So easy to understand and relate. Trauma information presented in a completely unique way. Never explained better or more concisely. Truly a gem of a book.

This is an exceptional book for anyone who needs answers about pain. Medical professionals can use this to explain pain and it's many nuances to their patients.The book has great content. The colors, the printing, dark and light the small print.at the bottoms of some pages are difficult to read. Sometimes you just guess , or have someone else look at it for bbc you.

Loved it so much I had to give it away as a gift - need to purchase another copy for myself

For a small book - it is more of a pamphlet really - it really packs a punch. It explains pain in a brilliant, easy to follow way. It might be small, but there is a lot in here, and it is based on solid science, which is referenced. I suffer from chronic nerve pain from cervical spondylitis and a pinched nerve in my neck, and it has caused me great upset over the past few years. This book has helped me to gain a better understanding of my pain. We will all suffer from pain, acute or chronic, at some stage in our lives, and if you want to know more about the pain, I encourage you to read this small, but excellent book.

Steve offers a guide to help us understand which can be read over and over again. All the references are listed if you want to dig deeper but Steve's approach is targeted at those of us feeling these symptoms but struggling to make sense of them.I bought this book to give to my mother who has been diagnosed with 'anxiety' but no so called expert can offer a solution that works for her. I sense that she needs to find the solution herself. Maybe this book will help.

The book is very readable taking into consideration it is a complex subject. I must say that I strongly believe in everything that was presented and the book was very useful for me, it was informative and it helped me to understand better about the differences between chronic and acute pain. The insights presented will be helpful for me so I can manage and change my 'pain' experience and start re-training my brain alongside other treatments. The concepts presented in the book will definitely impact my relationship with the 'pain' and I can now see a whole new way of viewing it. I also loved the references in the back of the book for further reading.

This little book is great. It's not very long, easy to read with diagrams and makes a complex subject more understandable. (As a dyslexic I wish all books were presented this way). It should be given out in hospitals to people who are suffering with chronic pain issues. Thank you Mr Haines this is going to be a great place for me to start retraining my brain. Family members have already ordered their own copy.

If you need to explain what chronic pain is to your friends, family and perhaps your boss, then this book will help you. There are some excellent books around which explain the latest developments in the area of chronic pain and how to handle it, but some are astoundingly expensive. This one packs a punch and is affordable. Thanks Steve, your book has really helped.