The Challenge of Pain (Penguin Science)

Here you'll find the real story of pain and all it's manifestations. Not for the faint hearted or for those without some learning in medicine or ancillary services like psychology because of all the medical terms mentioned but if your determined you could read it with a dictionary in the other hand.So! if you want to learn about how pain work, look no further.

This is a follow up to the book "puzzle of pain". It updates our understanding of pain, in particular M & Ws "gate control theory", also goes on to talk about long term pain (i.e., neuropathic pain) and its underlying mechanisms. Also acknowledges the importance of pain clinics.

looks very interesting to me. red already a part of it. very clear the way everything is told in this book

This is a concise and well documented history of the scientific study of pain through the late 1990's. Though somewhat dated, this work remains a valuable resource for the student of pain to learn the paths leading to our current understanding of the subject.

I'm a grad student currently doing a thesis which will probably on diabetic pain. I bought the challenge of pain in the hopes that it would be an in depth introduction to the topic of pain(which is one I did not originally know much about). I have found it to be very informative, with multiple citations and diagrams illustrating key principles. As many of the studies cited are from the 70s and 80s, it is also a very useful summary about the history of pain research. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who is starting out in the field of pain, and probably anyone in the field already who would like to know more about it.

This is an extremely informative book. It is well written even for the lay reader.

This book was recommended for a school assignment on the topic of pain. Very comprehensive, many useful references and educational. Well-written.

Just what I needed to complete my essay interesting book

A very well-written volume on chronic and acute pain for the layman.Former McGill University professor Ronald Melzack is to be commended for his innovative take on a very real issue.He has helped to decipher the descriptive vocabulary and actual physiological mechanisms at play when we suffer from chronic pain.I doubt there is a better book about this topic that is as lucid and accessible to the general public.

I have been suffering from chronic shoulder pain for over six months, and I am having surgery soon which will hopefully fix the problem. The pain is an agonising 8/10 and lasts all day, from the moment I wake up until I go back to sleep in the evening. This pain has deteriorated my quality of life in a variety of respects. Sadly the exact cause of the pain has mystified my consultant, but I'm confident it was caused by misusing the shoulder press machine at the gym. I have been prescribed tramadol to help manage the pain, and I sometimes use a TENS machine with limited success. I wanted to educate myself about chronic pain, since I had a very limited understanding of my condition. This text has helped develop my knowledge and offers some comfort - it reminds me that I am not the only sufferer, and in fact there are many people around the world able to cope with similar conditions. Pain has a huge impact on mental and physical well-being, so educate yourself on the causes, effects and possible treatments.

Used this when taking a degree unit in pain management - learnt from the masters! Very good book, very readable and informative.