The Book Page

This Book does not simply recount peoples’ personal experiences with pain. What it does do is consider the major scientific underpinnings of the sensation of pain. The suggestions about how to confront chronic pain are clearly presented, illustrated and easy to understand. They are based on the anatomy and physiology of the involved muscles. After reading this Book, you will come away with an understanding of the possible causes of your pain and what to do about it.

For chronic pain suffers, it offers information about what is known about the nature of chronic pain, how muscles have been adversely affected and how to bring them back to their normal, healthy, pain-free state. The Book contains 80 drawings organized in 47 figures. Some show what the muscles look like, which joints they are attached to, and how their individual muscle cells are oriented. They allow you to visualize key muscles of the body and provide a basis for designing stretches and movements to rehabilitate them. Other drawings illustrate how to eliminate sites of shortening inside muscles that are contributing to your pain. Still others clearly lay out how to perform stretches and movements at home without the need for expensive equipment. 

The Book is written for the general public. In most cases it uses descriptive language to explain concepts with scientific terms placed along side in parentheses and clearly defined in a glossary. The book discusses all of the most common sites of chronic pain including the lower back, hip, knee, wrist and hand, jaw and temporomandibular joint and the shoulder, neck and upper back.

My motivation for writing it was that I felt that it could help so many people currently suffering with chronic pain. As a result of my own struggles with chronic pain and the knowledge I have gained as a basic scientist conducting research into pain pathways for most of my professional life, I have evolved approaches that can be applied to chronic pain situations in many different body parts. The approaches in the Book include the three main components that are part of many rehabilitative physical therapy approaches, i.e., stretches, movements and eliminating sites of contraction in afflicted muscles which have led to lost range of motion.

Following publication of The Book in February 2022, I was selected Author Of The Week (March 7-14, 2022) by the Nonfiction Authors Association.

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