Now on the wishlist...

[telophase]

Review of Melanie Thernstrom's The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering. from the review: "She shows that medical treatment of pain is suboptimal because most doctors have not yet incorporated recent scientific discoveries into their thinking, discoveries indicating that chronic pain is a disease in its own right, a state of pathological pain sensitivity."

Essentially, if I'm reading this right, her argument is that a certain amount of chronic pain is caused by the pain itself: sometimes because the people who have it behave or carry themselves in maladaptive ways which cause muscles to be disused and new pain to occur, and sometimes because the pain itself or the treatment of the pain causes changes in the brain or body.

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[telophase.livejournal.com]

I managed not to kill her, but it took a lot of deep breaths.

Well, that just proves her point! *ducks and runs*

I pulled a ligament in my ankle in 6th grade and because it didn't heal for six years* I ended up walking with my right foot turned inwards to avoid the pain, and it became such a habit that I didn't notice it until people pointed it out to me. It's mostly gone now - it still doesn't feel weird to walk that way - but it cannot have done me any good.


* My parents refused to take me to the doctor for something they thought could be cured with exercise, which the doctor said was bad for it when I finally got to one in college. Nooooo, I'm not bitter about that...