A concise, coherent account of one man’s experience with pain.
Advice for managing chronic pain without medication, based on the author’s experience with a neurological condition.
In this health book, Lewis (Peripheral Neuropathy: Daily Tips and Affirmations, 2014) recounts his story of managing the pain related to his peripheral neuropathy, a chronic condition with no identifiable cure. He uses his experience as a guide for others looking to manage chronic pain without drugs. Lewis vividly describes the often-debilitating pain he suffered when he first developed the condition, which was preceded by temporary organ failure and made basic movement impossible. With the help of medication, physical therapy, and neurological assessments, Lewis eventually managed to return home from the hospital, but side effects from the medications he was prescribed meant that their long-term use might be just as detrimental as the condition itself. Over time, in order to manage his chronic pain, Lewis developed a regimen of nondrug interventions—e.g., changing his mindset, meditation exercises, etc.—which he presents to readers as a nine-step program. Visualization is a major technique in Lewis’ arsenal, both as a tool for focusing the attention on positive outcomes and as a method of pain management. The book also addresses the relationship between nutrition—particularly the B vitamins—and pain, as well as exercise, meditation, and deliberate and constructive positive thinking as ways of dealing with a condition that is unlikely to be cured. An FAQ section provides basic information on peripheral neuropathy and organizations that provide support for those with the condition. While Lewis’ approach to managing pain is clearly the result of personal experience, he makes persuasive arguments in favor of the validity of his nine steps, though he never attempts to claim scientific expertise. Chronic pain often confounds medical researchers and practitioners, and conclusive data can be difficult to obtain, but it’s nonetheless jarring to see HowStuffWorks.com cited in the bibliography along with articles from The Clinical Journal of Pain and European Journal of Neurology.
A concise, coherent account of one man’s experience with pain.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1503359680
Page Count: 70
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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