It is unusual to find a book on chronic pain written by one who experiences it daily. When that person is also a writer and a scientist, the voice speaks confidently to a wide audience. This is not a book describing all current research on various pain disorders. It is a self-guided tour through the multiple aspects of causation, therapy, and self-awareness that an individual with chronic pain needs to understand in order to help themselves.
I was impressed by the work, woven out of Amy’s personal experience and amplified by her thoughtfulness, curiosity, and research. Her style is candid about her own experiences and practical in her advice. The story reveals her struggles, but always guides the reader away from negativity to more positive feelings of choice and control.
Amy’s writing style is conversational and direct, even blunt. Although easy to read, the information cannot all be digested, or applied, quickly. Many chapters end with a practical exercise, which should be read and worked on, time and again, in an effort to perfect the underlying skills they promote.
I think this book is useful for both patients and doctors. It deals with real concerns that clinicians and patients face. For example, I soon learned in the clinic that the available medications played a relatively small role in treatment. Side effects were frequent, the pain-relieving benefits small, and insurance coverage often difficult. In the long-term, self-management strategies play a greater role than medications alone. Many chapters here are devoted to aspects of self-management such as being aware of your personal energy (“Resource Management”), keeping moving (“Exercise and Pain”), and dealing with the inevitable anxiety and sadness (“Anxiety” and “Mindfulness and Meditation”). The chapter “Alternative Therapies” is the most practical guide that I have yet seen to sorting through available options. Interestingly to me, she recommends rating the therapies not necessarily on scientific evidence, rather on how they help the individual feel better.
In the introduction, and in the concluding summary, Amy makes it clear that there is no miracle cure. Rather the key to a better life with pain is to make small changes, little by little. And to become skilled at observing your body’s response. This is the most important message of Taming Chronic Pain, told in such a way as to make it sound brand new. I only wish that I had this book available to me earlier so that I could have recommended it to my patients.
Patricia Morley-Forster, MD, FRCPC
Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Founder Status
Professor Emerita
Dept of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care,
Western University, London, Canada
2013 Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society Gold Medal Winner
Living your life while managing your pain—now there’s a dangerous concept. For those who have experienced long-term chronic pain, this doesn’t feel like an option. You can live your life, or you can manage your pain, but doing both together seems impossible. How can you go about your daily life if everything you do makes you hurt? How can you do what’s best for your body without neglecting your life—your family, your job, your goals? Doing just one takes all the energy and strength you have. Believe me, I know this feeling well. It’s either/or, and your body isn’t giving you a lot of room to make the choice.
You don’t, however, have to choose. It is possible to live your life and take care of your pain simultaneously, but it isn’t easy and it isn’t finite. It takes time and effort and will probably constantly change as the nature of your pain changes, as your life changes.
So, please, do not approach this book as the answer. I’m going to save you a lot of time by telling you there is no single answer. There is not a solution to chronic pain. What there is, is more complex: management techniques, behavioral changes, coping strategies, and support mechanisms that will make living with chronic pain easier, will make you better at adapting, will help your loved ones adapt and understand, and that can be practiced and molded over time. You can learn a wide variety of methods to deal with the physical, financial, emotional, and mental challenges of living with pain that develop and grow with you and your circumstances, and get you as close to the life you want as possible. That life may or may not be normal, it may or may not be what you originally wanted, and it will probably not be pain-free, but it will be easier. It will become an option for you to do both: live and manage your health.
I have spent many years living with chronic physical pain, and for a long time I didn’t know that I was doing so. Doesn’t everyone just hurt all the time? Isn’t it normal to wake up exhausted after ten hours of sleep and be so stiff that you can’t bend your knees or move your back? Everyone gets hurt! Everyone gets sick and has pain! So you do what people do: suck it up, ignore it, move on with your life. Denial gets us through tough times, but beware. Denial comes in many forms, but for many chronic pain sufferers it comes in the guise of “coping.” Getting through each day, performing necessary tasks as best you can until your body gives out, gritting your teeth and plowing on ahead, despite how you feel—this is a form of denial. You are denying the reality of your body to get stuff done.
Don’t get me wrong—this can be an effective strategy for some, for a short while. It often seems necessary. But in the long term, it has many flaws. For one, it will spectacularly blow up in your face the minute it is stress-tested. Because, if you’re already living on the edge of what is possible for your body, when you are as healthy as you can be, what happens when you get a cold or break a bone or have to stay up through the night to meet a deadline? Or your kid gets sick, or you miss a meal, or any one of a million large and small things that happen to everyone all the time? You can’t push any more, and stuff starts to slide.
Or, what happens when your body fights back against always being ignored? When the pain increases because you’ve been pushing through it and, again, you can’t cope? Your life won’t magically put itself on hold or restructure itself while you fix the problem. Denial is an extraordinarily powerful thing, but it can only last so long, and, when it’s gone, the whole system collapses. And then you realize that you’ve spent your life coping rather than living.
I doubt anyone who has picked up a book titled Managing Your Pain While Living Your Life is still in this denial stage, but maybe you know someone who is. Maybe you lived there for a while yourself. Maybe you’ve still got one foot back there. There is no shame in that state; it is a natural emotional reaction to something that you cannot cope with. But this book is not intended for those living in that state or those who want a quick fix. Living and accepting a life with chronic pain is not for the faint of heart and, I’m sorry, it will require a lifetime of practice. But living can, absolutely, definitely, become easier.
I am not a doctor and I am not a miracle worker; I am not here to sell you snake oil or promise the unreasonable. I’m a scientist and professional problem-solver who has spent thirty years living with chronic pain disorders and the last ten studying them, researching tools and therapies for alleviation, and understanding the impact pain can have on every aspect of your life. Anyone who has been in long-term pain knows that this is not just about your body. Your mood, mental state, romantic relationships, financial situation, family, friends, career, hobbies, and life plans are all victims of pain—and that is the basis for this book.
There are a lot of books out there about living with chronic illness and living through pain—of many types. Many are excellent, and I have widely referenced plenty throughout this work; I encourage everyone to read as many as possible, do your own research, and listen to as many perspectives as possible. No two people’s journeys will be the