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APS Bulletin • Volume 12, Number 3, May/June 2002

Resource Reviews

John D. Loeser, MD, Department Editor

Erasing Pain

Reviewed by John D. Loeser, MD

Matthew H.M. Lee & Mary F. Bezkor, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 2001, 226 pages, $24.95 (hard cover), ISBN 0-312-24228-X

This book is aimed at patients. Its format consists of brief questions and far too glib answers. The first part is mainly about pain, but the latter part ranges across most of medicine, including such things as insect bites, diabetes, anal bleeding, pregnancy and stroke, to name a few. Actually, the very first part is hype about the Rusk Institute, certainly a very important and early rehabilitation center, but certainly not “the world’s most prestigious pain management clinic,” whatever that might mean and whoever would make such a determination.

Too many of the questions are glib, factually wrong, and misleading. It is not acceptable in the present era to confound tolerance and addiction. Transected nerve, if repaired, grows at a millimeter a day or an inch a month. A nerve that is only compressed may regain function much more rapidly. Pain is more than an “unpleasant sensation.” Pain cannot be measured by imaging the brain. I do not know what “a surgical nerve block” means. I have not the patience to list the myriad of such phrases and statements.

Yet, the authors clearly use a rehabilitative model that involves more than the attempt to cure symptoms. They recognize the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to complex pain patients. It is a shame that they have produced such an inadequate book. I do not recommend it for one’s patient library.

John Loeser is a professor of neurological surgery and anesthesiology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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