Customer Reviews

Explain Pain

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I've been dealing with Chronic Pain for nearly a year and have been in physical therapy just as long. I've read every article I could find on the internet associated with Chronic Pain including those related to both the physical and emotional states you go through.

This book, Explain Pain, was far and away the most helpful in crystallizing my experience and filling in the gaps that Doctors don't take the time to explain to you. Once you understand how pain works - the pain is less powerful.

Every Physical Therapist (PT) should incorporate this book into their chronic pain patient's regiment. Your PT should also take the time to discuss it with you. Just as important - you need to communicate with your PT as to what is going on with you physically and what is running through your mind. You have to be a team.

Another book I found very helpful is Anxiety, Depression and Anger: In Pain. These two books compliment each other well. Together they helped me to better understand chronic pain; how it impacts me; and they empowered me to deal with chronic pain head on and ultimately independently.


Anxiety, Depression, and Anger in Pain: Research Findings and Clinical Options

The best book on pain out there, easy to follow and very reassuring. A must read for anyone who is dealing with pain - especially chronic pain.

Recommended for all in the medical field and those suffering from pain with inquisitive minds. Fun illustrations. Written for multiple levels of understanding.

I made the mistake of trying to read "Explain Pain" like a novel; it's not! Reading the book slowly & thoughtfully in small sections is best. There is a wealth of information here presented in a humorous and palatable way. Lots of good tips. Loads of insight I never would have been able to discern on my own. My life has improved because of this book.

This is the most important text for rehabilitation teachers, practioners, and patients with chronic pain to read and understand. Many chronic pain patients are stuck in the traditional pain management mode of the medical and alternative systems of care. This text is scientifically sound and referenced but most important it represents an algorithm or pathway to recovery. Its philosophy is straight forward and when applied it represents a way to understand how pain controls your life and what patients/clients need to know and do to recover function. The orchestra (brain) has to play a different tune and modify its structure and function to modulate pain and restore life's activities.

I had chronic lower back pain for over 7 years. This pain was RUINING MY LIFE - specifically my ability to do the things I love - more on that in a minute...

The short summary is - this book will teach you the current state-of-the-art medical science on "Human Pain" - how the human pain system works, how you can better understand and manage it, and how to move beyond your pain's ability to negatively affect or even dominate your life. This book, I believe, is mainly used as a "text book" by the authors, and their organization, to teach medical professionals all over the world about the latest medical knowledge of the science and application of human pain.

About me - I am 49 years old - and have played and competed in all of the traditional American sports my whole life - and I have also raced motorcycles, scuba dived, I snowboard and ski, snow shoe, run, weight train, ride and race mountain bikes... ALL of this had slowly come to a halt. My "active lifestyle" was finally catching up with me - or so it seemed. I could barely walk...I was in pain almost constantly - sitting, standing, walking... I was very very afraid that my life as I had known it was "over".

This book was recommended to me by a Physical Therapist at The Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, in Boulder Colorado - in response to my question "How can I get better educated about 'Pain' - how it works, and how I can better understand and deal with it?"

My PT recommended this book, "Explain Pain". I immediately went home and ordered it from Amazon. And then I took it with me on a 10-day vacation to Hawaii...

And here is what I did while I was there:

1. I "Speed Read" the whole thing - in probably 2-hours. I noticed the book was unusual - and intriguing - and it contained a LOT of information I had never seen or heard before.
2. Next - I read each chapter slowly and carefully - 1 chapter/day - and I highlighted, wrote notes and thoughts in the margins, etc. It is a truly fascinating read.
3. Because I REALLY wanted to learn and remember and apply the information presented - each day, before I read a new chapter - I re-read, fairly quickly, all the previous pages I had read, and reviewed my notes and highlights.
4. Finally - after finishing the book - I DID EXACTLY what the book recommends in the final chapter with regard to "moving forward with your life - healing and moving beyond your pain" - and IT WORKED. 100%. It really worked. These people are geniuses...

Net results?

In addition to working for several months with a wonderful PT, and following her advice and doing all my exercises and stretches - I resumed ALL my previous activities:
- I resumed mountain bike racing - and had one of my best seasons ever
- I had my greatest season of snowboarding in 25 years - keeping up with, and somtimes outlasting, my 17-year-old daughter and her friends
- I can run, lift weights, snow shoe, sit, walk, stand, sleep... all 100% pain free. AND at a level that is stronger than I could do 10 years ago

I would recommend you buy this book if you suffer from ANY kind of chronic pain [physical OR emotional], get a good Physical Therapist/Trainer to support you - and use your new knowledge to help "heal" your pain, and dramatically improve your life.

Good Luck!

AWESOME book. If you have chronic pain this is the book that explains how to get a handle on your pain by resetting your brains reaction to pain. Unbelievably helpful! I highly recommend this book. Since reading it and going to Pain classes on this book just once and I no longer spend my days in bed in pain. I am back to gardening, driving, and doing the housework. Gotta love a good thing!!

If my doctors had told me just one tenth of what this book explains so lucidly, I believe my back pain could have been drastically improved many years ago. "Explain Pain" is really well written, very informative, beautifully illustrated and ... even funny. Simply put, it's complete course in understanding how pain works and how you can improve your pain situation. The book is way more expensive than other pain management books, and I pondered a while before ordering because of the price. But compared to what my pain costs financially in treatment, medication, complementary therapies ++ it's really not a lot of money. Actually, I believe this was a great investment. The day after I started reading "Explain Pain" I had a major pain flare, which I managed to stop without medication, simply using the stuff I learned from the book.

I am under Pain Management as I suffer from chronic pain from muscular condition. A physio and a pyschologist both recommended this book to me as having some good strategies, however I did not find this to be the case. It cost a lot and came from Amazon Uk so when it arrived I was excited. However, I found it very simplistic and a bit patronising in tone. I'm sure the authors have a lot more knowledge they could have put in - basically it had what I found to be a lot of rather awful artwork** on every page and very few words of explanation or advice. ** I'm not talking just about style, it didn't clearly show the brain processes it was supposed to represent so to me it was a waste of an opportunity to reinforce the words.

I believe the book is probably to be used in conjunction with a medical person - however, neither my doctor, pyschologist, or rehab physio would have the time or the inclination to sit with me and go through it. Also, as a long term sufferer of pain, most of the brain processes have been explained already, and if they hadn't, this wouldn't be the book, and if they had, this wouldn't be the book to get either.

So I was left disappointed, let down and rather confused about what value this book would be to anyone.

I have lived with pain for 8 years but this book was only recently recommended to me by a physiatrist. No one before had ever mentioned it to me. I can only guess that this is because not enough professionals or patients know about this fantastic, thought-provoking, and healing book. I say healing because going through the medical system as a chronic pain patient is not easy. Instead of blaming the patient, these authors provide much needed understanding and support. Even better, this book takes complex and scientific information and turns it into a very readable but still totally enlightening experience. It really will explain your pain. Hopefully, by understanding pain better, we will be better able to cope with it. Sincerely, ourchronicpain.com