Understanding Chronic Pain

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This is a personal narrative, a record of my passage among victims of chronic pain and the discoveries that have come from those encounters. I write for physicians, nurses, therapists, and caregivers, but mostly, I write for you who suffer the disease.

I know you very well, perhaps as well as anybody in the world. I have listened to your stories with patience and attention, and I have been greatly rewarded. You have trusted me with the deep recesses of your thoughts and fears, and the memories of the dreadful experiences that are so often the origin of chronic pain.

I have treated thousands of you and I believe I have some understanding of your illness. I offer a series of essays about people like you who suffer chronic pain. From their case histories, I derive certain conclusions. Some conclusions are bold and imaginative. Some are disturbing and frightful. Not all of them will apply to you, but some certainly will. My wish is that you gain greater understanding of your illness, for only understanding it will you conquer it.

— Robert T. Cochran Jr., M.D.

Table of Contents

1. Failure to Recover
2. What is Chronic Pain?
3. Identifiers and Risk Factors
4. Mind-Soul Disease
5. Drugs for Pain
6. Memory
7. Triavil
8. The Painful Brain
9. Sexual Abuse
10. Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
11. Kindling
12. Substance Abuse
13. Bipolarity
14. Chronic Fatigue
15. Migraine
16. Neurogenic Inflammation
17. Attention Deficit Disorder
18. Summing Up

Endorsements

David D. Duncan

"For far too long, chronic pain sufferers have been considered as just another difficult statistic. In many previous books on the subject, very little empathy for their tortuous plight has been shown. This is no longer true. With the publication of Understanding Chronic Pain , Dr. Robert T. Cochran, Jr. effectively puts a personal face on this debilitating disease. His compassion and determination to actually help his patients control their intense levels of pain shines through on every well-written page. By examining actual case studies, we learn emphatically that no one should suffer needlessly when legitimate pain control options are available."

David D. Duncan, author of Familiar Faces: The Art of Mort Drucker, chronic pain patient for nearly twenty years.

Keith W. Hagan, M.D.

"Robert Louis Stevenson writes in Treasure Island, 'We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we can find in our travels is an honest friend.' In his approach to chronic pain, Dr. Cochran brings honesty and understanding. His book invites readers to open doors which have long been shut, both to those who treat pain and those who suffer it."

Keith W. Hagan, M.D.
Urologist

Woody Paul

"Dr. Cochran is deeply aware of the person inside the pain. He understands how patients like myself who have experienced pain can feel despondent, depressed, and sleep-deprived but still have to get up and slug away at a whole new day of real life problems plus carry all that pain around. His insightful diagnosis has helped me live a much more pain-free existence."

Grammy Award-Winning Performer Woody Paul (Riders in the Sky)

Carol

"Dr. Cochran's compassion, as well as his comprehension of the scope of painfulness, is apparent throughout this book. His understanding of chronic pain helps temper some of the more difficult subjects he touches on. . . . His insights into the role of childhood abuse will be particularly important to those who have known that experience."

Carol, who suffers pain all over her body

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