Wednesday, August 18, 2010

New Book on Pain

I just saw a post on Facebook from one of my favorite authors, Abigail Thernstrom that her daughter, Melanie Thernstrom, has a new book out today entitled The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering. As someone who is dealing with intense computer-induced back and hip pain, I'll have to check it out.

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21 Comments:

Blogger globalman100 said...

Helen,
"As someone who is dealing with intense computer-induced back and hip pain."
How did you come to the conclusion that your back and hip pain is 'computer enduced'? I have suffered many bouts of severe back pain over the last 30 years including slipped disks 4 times over. Happy to give you some tips if you wish. Best thing for me is good physio/massage and exercise. Failing that. Strong pain killers.

5:44 PM, August 18, 2010  
Blogger Helen said...

globalman100,

I work on the computer hours a day. The docs and physical therapists I have seen think it is caused by the constant sitting etc. Whenever I get away from the computer for a week, it gets better, so that is probably the tip-off. I swim, walk and lift weights, and work with a trainer which help very much but it can't compensate for all the time at the computer. I might take you up on those tips though!

6:10 PM, August 18, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

I have worked on computers 8 hours a day since 82....more usually 10-12 hours a day. It is not uncommon for me to spend 30-40 hours working in a single stretch with only short breaks. Lots of men do this. I see them in my job all the time.
Mens bodies are more able to sustain stresses. It's that simple. We also put up with a lot more pain despite what women say. For women to sit in front of computers stressing their bodies continually is not good for them. The women I know in IT report what they call 'severe pain' even from very modest periods working.

6:16 PM, August 18, 2010  
Blogger Topher said...

Different people's bodies respond differently to repetitive stress; I don't think it has anything to do with gender.

10:14 PM, August 18, 2010  
Blogger Helen said...

Topher,

Actually, I think it does have to do with gender. I have read that women, due to smaller, finer bones, can be more susceptible to carpel tunnel and repetitive stress injuries.

7:41 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Topher/Helen,
please go read about what happened to women in russia when they 'won their liberation'. Lenin was a HUGE feminist and russia was destroyed by feminism which is nothing more than communism in drag.

Because so many men quit working due to the family law (and for those of you who are ignorant we have bolshevick family law in the west....you might wonder why that might be) and millions more were killed in wars and gulags the women were forced to work in the factories and fields.

Due, as helen points out, to their lighter bone structures, years and years of hard toil produced deformities such as bending of the bones etc in the women. The old women often had severely deformed bones.

My russian lady friends know ALL about this. They know feminism is poison and that the place of a man is to do the hard labour and the place of a woman is to support him in doing it, not trying to compete with him to do the hard labour.

Being the house-keeper is a FAR better occupation for a woman than pretty much anything else she can do because the variety of activities does not lead to sustainsted repetitive stresses on her body. Labouring for her children in the family home is the safest and most important job a woman can do. Only women could be so foolish as to believe 'the home is a comfortable concentration camps' and 'the role of a housewife is parasitic' and 'the profession of housewife is an illegitimate profession and should not exist'.

8:45 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger Topher said...

Globalman,

I thought you were way overplaying your hand, but if Dr Helen agrees with you, who am I to argue.

9:22 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger SGT Ted said...

Helen,

I would assume that you have tried different chairs and other ortho gear. I had the same problem before I retired from the Army; the culprit was the chair I was using.

10:21 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger Simon Kenton said...

I get a lot of relief from hatha yoga, but you need an instructor in the Iyengar tradition who has studied remedial asanas.

Whimsical, and will make your husband laugh at you, but Vibram Fivefingers (they look like ape feet) mean no back pain while you're wearing them.

10:22 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger Helen said...

SGT Ted,

Yes, I have tried several chairs, desks and just got a new monitor which has helped. The most recent chair I use seems to be better but after a while,the pain starts back up.

Topher,

Well, I am not a chiropractor or orthopedist but I have worked with thousands of SSI claims and many women seem to have carpel tunnel as well as other repetitive injuries. However, all this means is that women should take precautions and get treated (just as men should). I don't think staying at home looking after kids is the answer for all women (as globalman100 seems to suggest), though being a housewife is a noble profession, in my opinion.

11:11 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Topher,
LOL!! Women are smaller and weaker than men. It's a fact. Nothing for women to get 'upset' about. I can't have a baby either and I don't get upset about that. ;-)

11:11 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Hi Helen,
"I don't think staying at home looking after kids is the answer for all women (as globalman100 seems to suggest)"
I am glad you said 'seems to suggest'. After all. My wife wanted a 'career' and I assisted her greatly in this so it would be hypocritical of me to say that I proposed SAHM as the ONLY thing a woman can do.

What I AM saying is that going to work for 45 years sucks. 99%+ of men have jobs they don't like, we just get used to it. When I was 14 or so and the girls would tell me they wanted to 'get a job like a man' I would tell them they had to be completely crazy because being a SAHM was a fantastic job compared to ANY job a man might do. Of course they called me a MCP for saying such. But take a look around Helen. LOTs of middle aged women like my ex who are working for a living really hate it. Whereas my mum? When she was middle aged she spent her time travelling the world with her sisters. She was telling me that her from from 45-65 was a very idylic time for her because she did not have to work and she got to spend lots of time traveling and being with her friends. My Dad got to go to work. Any way you slice it being a SAHM who manages to get a good husband beats the hell out of working for a living. My mum enjoyed very good health until 68 when she slipped into dimentia.

By the way. My ex had carpel tunnel, allergies, aches and pains as a software developer and mother of 4 kids. A part of her cure was a naturopath we found who uses very narrowly practiced technique of balancing the chemicals in the body. I swear by her and I go to see her every time I am back in Australia.

11:29 AM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger Helen said...

globalman100,

Thanks for the clarification.

2:41 PM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Helen,
No problem.

You and FM are the only two sensible women I have found runny blogs on the web. So I am quite interested in staying on a bit if it helps save mens lives.

Erin Pizzy, Christina Hoff Summers and that woman Schiffly (?) are not doing similar.

Women certainly are not 'equal' in bringing the crimes of women to the fore.

2:47 PM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger Helen said...

globalman100.

You are welcome here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. We certainly don't all have to agree here but I think that it's important to discuss men's issues openly.

3:01 PM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger ErikZ said...

I'm not enjoying the sheer amount of time I'm spending in front of the computer. So I'm looking into building a treadmill computer desk.

4:06 PM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Helen,
my gm email is globalman100@yahoo.co.uk if you wish to write off board. You can delete this post if you want.

A bit over two years ago I took a vow to 'make the laws fair' in Australia with respect to divorce. I had just found out that one estimate placed it at 4,000 dead men per year from the abuse of the family court and the CSA. (10x the male road toll) Having just been suicidal for a month at the time and looking around for my 'next project' having dis-owned my former children I determined that I would bring about fair laws in Australia in a 5-10 year time frame.

Further research led me to where I was able to prove what I am talking about in under 18 months. You will appreciate how massively fast that is. By the end of the year I hope to have a book out that liberates ALL men in Australia/Ireland from the tyranny of the FC. It might take a little longer to get my court cases done and remedies implemented. But that would be 2.5 years to go from 'problem' to 'solution' for the family court system in a country where all before me have failed. That is quite something of an achievement. No-one else has done that. At first I was surprised men were not interested in liberating themselves. Now I realise men like to be slaves.

There are other issues I am dealing with but the needless deaths of so many men and then the fatherlessness that results is something I think is worth fixing. Don't you?

4:20 PM, August 19, 2010  
Blogger Topher said...

Prime,

They already exist. My buddy also had a standing desk at home, said his sitting job made standing at home enjoyable.

1:38 AM, August 20, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

globalboy.0000000001,

Were you a woman, you would make sense, in trying to prove your point over and over again.

What you need to do is study William F. Buckley Jr.

After all, why seek answers from a female over and over and over and over and (etc...) if you seek an honest answer to your question?

Although the human experience is vast and therefore vague, as I can best deduce, globalboy, you outta submit to Allah (Catholic Buckley drew different, and very opposing, views of life and women than you do; Allah didn't).

Jesus was a beta-male, after all. Not so your true destiny's idol.

10:46 PM, August 20, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Fort,
sweetie, as is typical from a woman, just shaming language. Not a rebuttal in sight. Not a fact. No evidence. No logic. No reason. Just 'shaming language'.

Thank you for providing the men here with one more example of how women 'argue'.

7:20 AM, August 21, 2010  
Blogger globalman100 said...

Fort,
"gboy, you're dense; I'm a man"
1. Just because you have a penis does not make you a MAN.
2. You didn't make an argument. You just used shaming language. And ALL people who do that I label 'women' and call them sweetie, sweetie.

"My arguments, which you didn't address, are superiour to any of yours, which is why you call me names and refuse to address my points."

You didn't make any argument.

4:11 PM, August 24, 2010  

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