The Pain Chronicles, Melanie Thernstrom
The Pain Chronicles, Melanie Thernstrom
List: $20.49 | Sale: $14.34
Club: $10.24

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

Author: Melanie Thernstrom

Narrator: Laural Merlington

Unabridged: 11 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/24/2010

Synopsis

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changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to devastating effect.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.

About Melanie Thernstrom

Melanie Thernstrom is the author of the bestselling memoir The Dead Girl and Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder. She is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and has also written for the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications. She lives near Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Rosalind on November 15, 2018

A little surprised to see the harshness of some reviews on here! So in the interest of expectation-setting: this book reads more like a piece of extended journalism than a self-help book or poetic memoir, so if it’s answers you’re looking for, you will no doubt be disappointed. If, however, you fanc......more

Goodreads review by Christine on October 01, 2010

This is a fabulous book but would probably only interest those who suffer some sort of intense chronic pain. It has a lot of great information on how the pain of whatever medical condition you may have actually affects you, shares research on pain, goes through the history of pain, and she sites exa......more

Goodreads review by Susanne on December 26, 2020

I chose to read this while thinking about two individuals I have known who have chronic pain conditions -- and concluded I might not encourage either of them to read it. This is an extremely intellectual look at something I presume to be very personal and unique: an exhaustive look at what has been......more

Goodreads review by Alyssa on March 30, 2018

An excellent, informative read on the chronic illness of pain. I appreciated how Melanie Thernstrom was able to weave her own story of pain into the material, but it never felt that it was overshadowing the research or stories from other chronic pain sufferers. I would recommend this book for a full......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List