Book: Crooked (Cathryn Jakob Sonramin)

 Crooked

Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery

Author; Cathryn Jakob Sonramin

Purchase at Amazon, Barns & Noble and Nook

Synopsis.

I’d struggled with backache and sciatica for years. Like millions of other back pain sufferers, I was overwhelmed with ill-defined options for treatment. Which would work? Which would simply drain my wallet? And which might leave me in worse shape than when I began? As I struggled to answer these questions, I realized that I had plenty of company. In the United States, the cost of treating back pain exceeded $100 billion a year, and much of that money was wasted on ineffective tactics.

What started as my straightforward effort to resolve an annoying problem turned into six years of investigative reporting and writing. The book is handily divided into Part I: Problems, and Part II: Solutions, and if you have to read Part II first, that's okay. Well before you finish reading Crooked, you’ll understand that the pain in your back (or your hip or your leg) also exists in a political, psychological and economic context that greatly influences how you’ll be treated – and if you’ll recover. You'll know which approaches are likely to reliably bring you some relief, and exactly what's involved in each.

My goal with Crooked is to set the back pain industry’s offerings in their proper context, so that patients have the information they need to make good decisions; to know what works sometimes, what works rarely, and what can cause harm.

Thoughts.

Both my current pain provider and the asshole rheumatologist I saw suggested that I read books regarding controlling and understanding my pain. In the past 10 years I've read many but when looking at what was available now this book peaked my interest.

This book starts really strong. I felt everything the author was talking about. I've been stuck in an endless cycle of non-working treatment. I've tried almost everything that this book talks about that doesn't work. I've been treated like I'm crazy, I've been told to “suck it up”, “This is your new normal” and dismissed. I've been put in dangerous positions with medications from my care team and have switched doctors trying to find someone who will listen.

What I didn't like was that this book gives too many detailed descriptions of holistic treatments.

I loved the perspective of someone who's tried them all, someone who's talked to the experts and has been all around trying to find relief. I can relate to that.