The Pain Detective: Every Ache Tells a Story - (Praeger Contemporary Health and Living) by Hillel Finestone (Hardcover)

About the Book

Sure to be welcomed by the thousands suffering persistent pain, this volume explores what physicians often ignore--how psychological and social issues can influence health, illness, pain, and recovery.
"Pain is everywhere and everyone is talking about it," says Dr. Hillel Finestone, M.D., a researcher and rehabilitation specialist whose work has been featured in publications as diverse as The Lancet, and USA Today. The key to understanding causes and solutions for many apparently mysterious, recurring aches, he explains, lies in understanding the mind-body relationship and the "real meaning" behind symptoms with no immediately obvious cause.

Taking the reader into several diagnostic sessions to illustrate what he sees as a "detective" process to find the source of pain, Finestone explains how psychological and social issues can influence health and healing, for better or worse. Low back and neck pain, fibromyalgia and even work related pains are delved into.In addition to vignettes that illustrate the ideas discussed and show dramatic incidences of how healing the mind can also heal the body, Finestone uses unique and useful diagrams which explain how mind and body are physiologically connected and reactive to each other.

In these pages, readers can follow Dr, Finestone through patient sessions and understand, step by step, how the "pain detective" works to help his patients--and perhaps his readers, too--find lasting relief.

• 8 illustrations

Book Synopsis

Sure to be welcomed by the thousands suffering persistent pain, this volume explores what physicians often ignore--how psychological and social issues can influence health, illness, pain, and recovery.

"Pain is everywhere and everyone is talking about it," says Dr. Hillel Finestone, M.D., a researcher and rehabilitation specialist whose work has been featured in publications as diverse as The Lancet, and USA Today. The key to understanding causes and solutions for many apparently mysterious, recurring aches, he explains, lies in understanding the mind-body relationship and the "real meaning" behind symptoms with no immediately obvious cause.

Taking the reader into several diagnostic sessions to illustrate what he sees as a "detective" process to find the source of pain, Finestone explains how psychological and social issues can influence health and healing, for better or worse. Low back and neck pain, fibromyalgia and even work related pains are delved into.In addition to vignettes that illustrate the ideas discussed and show dramatic incidences of how healing the mind can also heal the body, Finestone uses unique and useful diagrams which explain how mind and body are physiologically connected and reactive to each other.

In these pages, readers can follow Dr, Finestone through patient sessions and understand, step by step, how the "pain detective" works to help his patients--and perhaps his readers, too--find lasting relief.

Review Quotes

"Finestone, a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Bruyere Continuing Care in Canada, helps general readers understand factors that their physicians often ignore: how psychological and social issues can influence health, illness, pain, and recovery. Taking the reader into several diagnostic sessions to illustrate the process of finding the source of pain, Finestone looks at low back and neck pain, fibromyalgia, and work-related pains. B&W diagrams explain how mind and body are physiologically connected and reactive to each other." --SciTech Book News

"Dr. Finestone's book The Pain Detective is a fascinating voyage into people's lives, their pains, physical and emotional, so closely intertwined, so that attempting to cure the one without tapping the other is inevitably futile." --Psychology Today

"As many patients do not understand the role of psychological states in their pain, this book will provide them with empowering knowledge. And because the book is structured as cloaked case studies of Finestone's actual patients, many patients will find solace via companionship with the book's patients. . . . Dr. Finestone has written an ex-cellent book recommended to chronic pain patients and physicians alike . . ." --BC Medical Journal

"Finestone is an astute clinician, but his primary medium is the patients' stories. In the multilayered tapestry of one's emotional life, relationships, and challenges of work, he uncovers details that allow him to trace origins of his patients' pain ... Finestone's tone is conversational and the narration of his cases is accompanied by his commentary. The reader is able to follow the author's thought process, something that I have enjoyed greatly as a pain clinician, and believe many of my colleagues would too. I believe those working in a primarycare office will also appreciate the insights gleaned from 'being in the room with Dr. F.' The purpose of the book, however, is not to learn the elements of physical diagnosis or interviewing skills; rather, it lies in showing the intricate nature of the experience of pain and puts emphasis on the need for treatment that takes that into account." --Canadian Medical Association Journal

About the Author