Pain: The Science of Suffering

If you have to learn about pain in all its varieties, then reading any title by Patrick Wall will be beneficial. this changed my view of pain perception . Patrick Wall was dedicated to the science and study of pain. Perfect for Physio students.

This book has definatly answered a lot of questions regarding Chronic Pain and has opened up a whole new understanding of the condition. The section on the placibo effect was of particular interest as it showed the mental side of dealing with pain and how we can possibly use our minds as part of a combined stratigy in dealing with pain. The mind and the way we think is a whole lot more powerful than I had first imagined and it can work for and against us with equal benifit and detriment. Patrick Wall covers this subject from all angles and this book is well worth reading for someone who suffers from this evil.

A word of advice: as the author states in the preface, this book is NOT a textbook, nor a do-it-yourself recipe book for pain relief. It is a work of communication for educated laymen "intended to give the readers the power of understanding processes in their own body." If the topic were not so grim, one could describe this work as "fascinating and fun." The topics he touches on range from studies of Yom Kippur War survivors to biofeedback training, from migraine auras to the sensitivity of babies to pain, from hand injuries to cannabis, and from nerve regeneration to the attention mechanism in ducklings and monkeys. The slim volume is filled with anecdote and humor, as well as with suffering. He reminds us that pain frequently occurs without physiological basis, and that pain sometimes fails to kick in when we are severely ill. ---- Dr. Patrick Wall (a British professor of physiology who started his career 40 years ago as a neuroscientist) is the author of several other books about pain. He unfortunately has first hand knowledge of pain. He is the victim of cancer. ---- This volume explains what we have learned in recent years about pain - and is honest about the vast amount of ignorance still to be conquered. After examining the corpus of knowledge - much of it gained in the last few decades -- in the first nine chapters, Dr. Wall brings together "all the phenomena we have discussed in the previous chapters and ask[s] what precisely is going on in someone who senses pain" in Chapter 10. His purpose: "a profound understanding one's own pain has itself a therapeutic effect and proposes a rationale for therapy." This is a fascinating summary of the status of knowledge to today. It is a work that invites re-reading.

Who better to spend a few evenings with (metaphorically) than Patrick Wall, the man who literally, with Ronald Melzack, wrote the (text)book about pain?Wall is now in the twilight of his still productive career. In this refreshing book, he gives an overview of what he has learned. He distinguishes among normal, i.e. biologically useful, and abnormal pain. He discusses at length the placebo response, showing fascinating data that it may be found even among animals. His main point is that pain may be seen as a preparation for response, hence the essential role of attention in the experience. This book is for the educated layman with a curiosity about the ubiquitous yet misunderstood phenomenon of pain. It will also be of considerable interest to the physician treating pain.

I was attracted to this book because earlier in my life I had experienced chronic pain for 8 years. The search for relief was ultimately successful, but the path to finding that relief was long and arduous. What I learned in the process didn't help me very much for being able to advise others, so I hoped this book would help. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Pain contains more information about pain than all that I learned in my personal journey. "Any knowledge that brings patients into a clearer appreciation of their condition decreases their anxiety," says the author, Patrick Wall who is a pain researcher and was suffering from pain related to cancer while authoring the book.Wall's basic point is that pain is related to many different parts of the brain and body, and is affected by our psychology. Little is known about many aspects of pain, and there is little focus on pain relief in medical training or medical research. Wall knows that the fear of pain is often worse than the pain, so he makes the subject amazingly pleasant. I expected to be depressed by reading the book, and felt elated instead as I learned more about the causes of pain. The book starts up with case histories where people with severe injuries report no initial pain. The reason seems to be that they were still in a survival mode, and surviving concentrated their attention away from the wound and potential pain. Many frequent "mysteries" of pain are also explored like people who have lost limbs and feel pain in the lost part of the limb. You will also learn about fascinating experiments to identify causes of pain and their relief. The book goes on to discuss the sources of pain, how treatments interact with those sources, and how placebo effects can reduce pain. For example, did you know that pessimistic people report more pain than others? As a result, I learned that it is normal to have some residual pain from my earlier experiences. I need not be concerned that full pain will return. That was a nice relief. I suspect that you, too, will lose some of the unnecessary sources of your concerns about pain. And that will probably, in turn, reduce the pain you will experience in your future. While that is happening, you should examine other areas of your life where you fear the worst. That could be a harmful misconception. Why not begin to expect the best instead? Think about it. There may be another placebo effect to help you there also.