Managing Pain Before It Manages You by Margaret A. Caudill, Herbert Benson

Synopsis

Imagine finding a way to spend less time in doctors’ offices, and to decrease the discomfort, depression, and anxiety associated with chronic pain. Managing Pain Before It Manages You offers just that--a program to help you reduce your pain and learn coping skills to get your life back. Developed over the author’s many years of working with chronic pain sufferers, this program has been proven effective. Program participants report that they have been able to take control of their pain and cut their doctor visits by more than one third! Straightforward and compassionate, this hands-on guide provides detailed information plus step-by-step techniques and activities that help you:

*Understand the causes of chronic pain

*Recognize what increases and decreases your pain symptoms

*Reduce your pain and emotional distress

*Learn effective problem solving

*Make informed decisions about medications and nutritional therapies

*Incorporate relaxation, meditation, and gentle exercise into your daily routine

*Communicate effectively about your pain

*Set realistic goals

New to the Third Edition

Thoroughly revised and updated, the third edition includes the latest information on medications and other clinically proven treatment strategies, expanded coverage of specific pain disorders, and a new appendix featuring Internet resources. Plus, readers can download free MP3 audio files of three of the guided relaxation exercises in the book (one hour total).

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Louis G. Salib, MD (University of Chicago)
Description:This book explains practical ways to relieve pain by using social, psychological, mental, and nutritional methods rather than using medication. It uses a practical questionnaire and self-testing to apply the information delivered in the initial paragraphs of each chapter.
Purpose:According to the author, the purpose is to explain current ideas about chronic pain and treatment, update recommendations for using drugs to treat pain, emphasize the importance of maintaining activities inside and outside the home, emphasize the power of the mind to help the body, explain extensively the value of proper nutrition to fight pain, explain how to accomplish personal goals, suggest how best to manage future pain flare-ups and discuss information about alternative medicine. Finally, it expands its reach to health professionals to encourage the dialogue between the patient and health professionals. These worthy objectives are met with this book.
Audience:According to the author, the book is written to help people who are suffering from chronic pain. It can be applied in groups or individually in pain clinics, independent psychotherapy, primary care, and physical therapy. In my view, it is written to help people who are in pain and to help pain management practitioners guide those people to the proper management of pain.
Features:The book covers the relationship of the mind, nutrition, psychological development in childhood, physical therapy, and communication to the management of pain. What is best about the book are the charts in each chapter, which help readersevaluate themselves and diagnose and treat many problems that exacerbate pain. The different stories in each chapter are interesting and helpful in clarifying the concepts. Unique features include the appendix about different common pain conditions, alternative medicine, and working comfortably. Shortcomings include the lack of some pictures or illustrations.
Assessment:This book handles the extremely important problem of chronic pain in a different but more practical and effective way. It incorporates other essential elements to help fight pain, which may be ignored or forgotten by either the patient or the treating pain practitioner. There is a lot of significant updating which makes the new edition essential as a replacement for the previous one.

Biography

Margaret A. Caudill, MD, PhD, MPH, is a board-certified internist and a Diplomate of Pain Medicine. For more than 25 years, Dr. Caudill has worked to improve the lives of people with chronic illness through medical treatments that address both mind and body. She has researched and written extensively on mind-body medicine and lectures internationally on the biopsychosocial treatment of pain. Currently, she is Instructor of Anesthesiology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center's Pain Management Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Clinical and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School.