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Title details for The Pain Chronicles by Melanie Thernstrom - Available

The Pain Chronicles

Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering

by Melanie Thernstrom
Laural Merlington
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to devastating effect.


In The Pain Chronicles, a singular and deeply humane work, Melanie Thernstrom traces conceptions of pain throughout the ages—from ancient Babylonian pain-banishing spells to modern brain imaging—to reveal the elusive, mysterious nature of pain itself. Interweaving first-person reflections on her own battle with chronic pain, incisive reportage from leading-edge pain clinics and medical research, and insights from a wide range of disciplines—science, history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, literature, and art—Thernstrom shows that when dealing with pain we are neither as advanced as we imagine nor as helpless as we may fear.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 24, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400198542
      • File size: 331807 KB
      • Duration: 11:31:15

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Unlike most scientific books about pain, Melanie Thernstrom writes about HER pain. She describes going to 85 doctors, looking for a cure. In the beginning the young virgin remembers swimming with her boyfriend to a raft in a lake, where she lost her virginity. She has experienced musculoskeletal pain ever since that moment. Using clever affectations, narrator Laurel Merlington portrays what she perceives as a patient on Freud's couch: neurotic, intelligent, depressed, and addicted. Merlington lets the writer's circuitous "brain farts" betray her state of mind. Having consumed so many substances to alleviate her misery disqualifies the patient from being a valid observer. Thernstrom now takes only Botox, Celebrex, and Tramadol. Pain sufferers looking for answers won't find many in this odyssey from acupuncture to Zoloft. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 17, 2010
      Imagine a "terror that surpasses all description," novelist Fanny Burney wrote in 1812 after removal of a breast abscess— without anesthesia. Then imagine such pain stalking you for years, as it does Thernstrom (Raj: The Making of British India) and 70 million other Americans. This is what Thernstrom describes in an exquisite, meticulous history of medicine’s quest to alleviate pain—from the first use of ether for surgery in 1842 to the modern management of chronic pain: drugs like Neurontin and controversial opioids (though they can make patients even more sensitive to pain); MRIs; and neuroimaging, which trains patients to literally change their own brains. But the personal chronicles lift this accomplished medical history to an astonishing record of courage and endurance. Danielle Parker goes to 85 doctors before finding back pain relief from a chiropractor who urges her to move around instead of reaching for a pill. Thernstrom herself ultimately finds a regime of physical therapy, Botox, Celebrex, Tramadol, and then changes her wish for a pain-free life to one filled with love and family. In these stories, there is a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and hope for the rest of us.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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