Manage your pain. Practical and positive ways of adapting to chronic pain

What was it like?

Manage your pain is a book that looks at the causes of chronic pain and provides practical solutions for people to implement into their lives, to help reduce the discomfort that they encounter. The first five chapters, look at what chronic pain is and also at what happens to your body when you’re in pain. The rest of the book shows the ways to manage the pain that people encounter, ranging from setting goals to using relaxation.  It is well written and covers the chapters well by providing the reader with enough information without being overwhelming.

What were the highlights? 

This title allows people who suffer from chronic pain,alternative methods of addressing it. The way the book is set out enables manageable chunks of information to be digested and provides a framework for incorporating practical steps into your everyday life. It provides a message of hope for chronic pain sufferers that they can continue their day-to-day lives and regain the control that they felt they had lost.

Strengths & weaknesses

It provides alternative way of addressing the pain that people suffer and enables them to look at how they can adapt practical solutions to the minimise the impact that pain and discomfort has on their day to day lives. The book allows you to understand that often there is a pattern to your pain and that there can often be practical steps that can help reduce the discomfort and pain that you encounter.  The incorporation of research studies at the end of the book support the described in the book. At over 250 pages long, the book could have benefitted form an index due to the vast amount of information provided.

Who should read it?

This book would be useful for individuals who have or are suffering from chronic pain and want to try alternative ways in easing the pain and discomfort that they are in. The book enables its readers to take back some of the onus in making adaptive changes to their lifestyles to improve their pain. It would also be beneficial for students, as it would enable them to think of alternative ways to address patients pain that does not completely respond to analgesics.