THE PAIN CHRONICLES Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering

Unlike most scientific books about pain, Melanie Thernstrom writes about HER pain. She describes going to 85 doctors, looking for a cure. In the beginning the young virgin remembers swimming with her boyfriend to a raft in a lake, where she lost her virginity. She has experienced musculoskeletal pain ever since that moment. Using clever affectations, narrator Laurel Merlington portrays what she perceives as a patient on Freud’s couch: neurotic, intelligent, depressed, and addicted. Merlington lets the writer’s circuitous “brain farts” betray her state of mind. Having consumed so many substances to alleviate her misery disqualifies the patient from being a valid observer. Thernstrom now takes only Botox, Celebrex, and Tramadol. Pain sufferers looking for answers won’t find many in this odyssey from acupuncture to Zoloft. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2010]