Headache in the Pelvis 5th Edition
by David Wise
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Book Summary Information
Author: David WiseEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-01
ISBN: 0972775544
Number of pages: 460
Publisher: National Center for Pelvic Pain
Book Reviews of Headache in the Pelvis 5th Edition
Book Review: Ineffective and Unscientific
Summary: 1 Stars
Pelvic pain can have a devastating affect on a persons life and when I first read Headache in the Pelvis I was filled with hope. This book offered me my ticket back to a healthy, pain free life. After finishing the book I was eager to attend the clinic and almost immediately phoned the author and booked a place to attend the clinic.
After attending the clinic I diligently practised the protocol described in the book for more than a year. I would stretch, have hot baths , practise the relaxation methods taught to me and also have trigger point therapy performed on me all as described in the book and practised at the clinic. In the first few months I was full of enthusiasm and even recommended the book to other patients. However as the months passed by my enthusiasm began to wane. I was not seeing the progress I hoped for. I still faithfully persevered with the protocol but after a year I still had not seen any significant progress. The protocol helped me deal with the pain but it was not reducing it at all. At first I thought it was just me that it had not worked for but after contacting other people who had also been to the clinic I found that they had not made progress either and had moved onto other treatment. After a year and a half I resigned myself to the fact that the protocol was ineffective. I am still yet to meet a person helped by this treatment program.
In my opinion when you suffer from chronic pelvic pain your desire to recover can cloud your judgement. This happened when I read this book for the first time and I was not objective in my appraisal of the book. I so wanted to become pain free that I pushed niggling doubts to the back of my mind. The book in some respect encourages you to do this. It says you must have faith in the treatment. The word faith implies that you must believe in something for which there is little or no evidence for. After a few read throughs of the book I realised that there are very real problems with Headache in the Pelvis. I would like to share just a few of them with you.
The first may seem trivial but it is the writing style of the book. As has been mentioned in another review on Amazon Wise and Anderson are not writers. The writing is awkward and the book uses tired twee phrases such as `when life gives you lemons make lemonade'. There is also the infantilising land of the pelvic floor story used to describe the condition to sufferers. As I have mentioned the book appeals to a persons faith and spirituality. This is fine in a self help book at Borders but should these words appear in a work of science? The book is apparently the result of 8 years work at Stanford ,one of the finest academic institutions in the country. I find it disconcerting that the authors after 8 years work produced such a poorly written book. It makes me suspicious of the length of time it actually took to produce.
The second is the books way of arguing for the main theory of Headache in the Pelvis. A central premise of the book is that psychology creates pelvic pain, for example sexual abuse, guilt of cheating on a partner, anxiety etc causes pelvic pain. So if we simplify this premise we can say A causes B. Now the correct scientific approach to this would be to try to collect all the evidence that suggests A does not cause B. If you cannot disprove your theory then there's a good chance it is correct. The book does not do this though. The authors instead look for all the evidence that suggests A does cause B. That's a recipe for believing any quack theory ever created.
I've heard of women who got pelvic pain after pregnancy, patients developing pelvic pain after a car crash, after an infection which has since resolved, from weightlifting, from falling badly, from hernias, nerve entrapments. The authors appear to ignore these possibilities as this does not fit the theory, in other word these points suggest that A does not cause B. The book cannot be taken seriously as it does not want to confront the obvious flaws in its central theory.
I suspect the authors are making the classic mistake of all bad science mistaking correlation for causality. Please find me a person with pelvic pain for which there is no obvious diagnosis who is not anxious.
The authors are also fond of highlighting the fact that their protocol has been published in a Urology Journal. I was at first encouraged by this but in reality it is not that impressive. As a book called Bad Science by Ben Goldacre points out ` there have been an estimated fifteen million medical articles published so far, and 5000 journals are published every month.'' Are we to assume that every single article published is relevant and completely accurate in its findings? Just because something is published in a journal does not make it fact.
The book is written by a urologist and a PhD graduate. Admittedly its reassuring that the book is co authored by a urologist but I have to say I am not so impressed with a PhD qualification. I accept it takes a great deal of effort to obtain a PhD but as the book Bad Science again points out ` there are few opinions so absurd that you could not find at least one person with a PhD somewhere in the world to endorse them for you and similarly, there are few propositions in medicine so ridiculous that you could n't conjure up some kind of published experimental evidence somewhere to support them'' I have to say I would be curious to know what subject the authors PhD is in.
The book also contains no references. The reader is meant to blindly accept the claims of the authors. In addition most of these claims are speculation. The phrase ` we speculate' is common in the book. `We speculate' is a nice way of saying `well we don't have any evidence to support our claim but this is what we think'. The book bases most of its assumptions on a single experiment that showed electrical activity increases in a trigger point when a patient counts backwards which they suggest is a way of inducing anxiety. What is new about this finding? Its been known for some time now that anxiety can increase chronic pain and it does not suggest that anxiety creates trigger points only that it increases activity within it. It also does not suggest that if you decrease anxiety you can eradicate a trigger point.
In my opinion when looked at objectively and rationally this book is a poor contribution to the study of pelvic pain. The book is described as ground breaking and revolutionary. I suspect this is just marketing for the book but if this is the case I would suggest the field of pelvic pain research is in serious trouble.
Summary of Headache in the Pelvis 5th Edition
This groundbreaking book describes the Stanford Protocol for muscle related pelvic pain in men and women, a new and revolutionary treatment developed at Stanford University. Specifically, the 5th edition adds a section on advice to partners and loved ones of people with pelvic pain, practical advice on minimizing the risk of pelvic pain during childbirth, expanded discussion of the possible use of a modified Stanford Protocol for anal fissures, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation and other anorectal disorders, further clarification for the layman with prostatitis, discussion of the effect of food and drink on interstitial cystitis, discussion of anxiety as the breeding ground for pelvic pain, the central practice of attention training in relaxing the pelvic floor, the use of RSA breathing during Trigger Point Release, further insights in the practice of Paradoxical Relaxation, new drawings illustrating Stanford Protocol physical therapy self-treatment, the first time explanation of post-bowel movement pain associated with pelvic pain, additions to the medical science being conducted to help those individuals suffering from pelvic pain around the world and more. The Stanford Protocol describes the treatment of prostatitis, chronic pelvic pain syndrome, pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic floor myalgia, interstitial cystitis, urethral syndrome, levator ani syndrome among other related diagnosesSelf-Help Books
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