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Painful Yarns
Painful Yarns
Painful Yarns
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Painful Yarns

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This much anticipated collection of stories, written by Oxford University Fellow and Pain Scientist, Dr GL Moseley, provides an entertaining and informative way to understand modern pain biology.
Described by critics as ‘a gem’ and by clinicians as ‘entertaining and educative’, Painful Yarns is a unique book. The stories, some of his travels in outback Australia, some of experiences growing up, are great yarns. At the end of each story, there is a section “so what has this got to do with pain?” in which Lorimer uses the story as a metaphor for some aspect of pain biology.
The level of the pain education is appropriate for patients and health professionals. The entertainment is good for everyone. You don’t have to be interested in pain to get something from this book and a laugh or two!
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 1, 2007
ISBN9780987342638
Painful Yarns
Author

G. Lorimer Moseley

Prof. Lorimer Moseley PhD, Lorimer's interests lie in the perceptual and motor mechanisms of pain, the effects of pain physiology education in treatment and the interface between psychological and physical aspects of the human experience. After post-docs at the Universities of Queensland and Sydney, he was appointed Nuffield Fellow at Oxford University. In 2007 Lorimer authored his book 'Painful Yarns' and won the IASP Ulf Lindblom Award, given to the top clinical scientist under 40 working in a pain related field. Lorimer continues to publish and present widely.

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    Painful Yarns - G. Lorimer Moseley

    2

    introduction

    I decided to write this book after a great deal of lobbying from two groups of people. The first group was patients with whom I shared these stories as I tried to explain to them what we now know about the biology of pain. I love stories as a way to back up biology. I am convinced that if people in pain can understand their pain in terms of its underlying biology, it helps them cope with it and ultimately overcome it. I rely on Explain PainRef List No. 1 to present the biology, and I use stories like the ones in this book to ‘cement’ it. So this book is for people in pain.

    The second group who lobbied for this book was clinicians with whom I shared some of these stories at conferences, at seminars and at courses. I would always get asked ‘Have you written those stories down?’ Well, now I have. I have read versions of some of these stories being recounted as part of pain management program manuals. I am cool with that, but I didn’t feel right about the way the stories had become that little bit grander than they already were – I think one had me flying a helicopter while half conscious (I didn’t rush to correct it mind you – I felt a bit like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo). So, this book is for clinicians.

    I have three hopes for this book. First, I hope you find the stories as interesting and as fun as I do. Second, I hope the stories help you understand the biology of pain. Third, I hope that TMBA, Mick, JK, Frank, Heidi, Smurph, Davo, Hannu, Dimos & Tan know I really appreciate your comments and suggestions on earlier versions of painful yarns.

    Lorimer, Oxford, 2007.

    nigel’s superskoda 110

    Or: Pain is a critical protective device. Ignore it at your own peril.

    When I first left school, I got what remains the coolest job I have ever had. It was so cool, I can’t even write here where I worked, nor what exactly I did. Now that is cool. I can say, however, that Nigel Mawson worked there too.

    Nigel was the nicest of about 15 middle aged investigative coppers¹. They were hard men. Nigel was a hard man too, there is no doubt about that, but he was a South Australian and sounded a bit like David Hookes. David Hookes was a cricketer² who once told me I had a good straight drive but I needn’t try and hit the cover off the ball. That David Hookes said I had a good straight drive was enough for me, as a 14 year old, to like him. That Nigel Mawson sounded like him was enough for me, as a 19 year old, to like him.

    The other thing that was peculiar and, to me, a bit endearing, was that he had an unusual habit of referring to everyone by their full name. I was always Lorimer Moseley. Never Lorimer. Never Moseley. Always Lorimer Moseley. He also did this in the third person - I will be taking Lorimer Moseley out with me today – there is something Lorimer Moseley ought to see. I have always been drawn to people who adhere to a silly little habit like that, even when to do so is considered by everyone else to be undoubtedly odd. So, unlike the rest of the grim- faced, overweight, estranged-from-their-family, married-to-their- job, chain smoking, heavy drinking blokes, Nigel didn’t scare me. That is why one day I asked him for a lift home from work.

    Nigel drove a 1971 Skoda SuperSport 110. Nigel didn’t care for it, particularly. In fact, he made it clear that he refused to know anything at all about cars, simply because his brother had always been obsessed by them. Nigel said that as teenagers, his brother was as obsessed with cars as Nigel was with girls. He said:

    Nigel Mawson: My brother would want to get busy with his girl in the back of his car so he could check out how his car performed! He used to sit outside the loo while I was in there reading MAD magazines. I’d shove loo paper in ears to avoid hearing him carry on about needing to bore out³ my Datsun 180B, and that my mates were all uncool because none of them had extractors.

    Nigel’s brother had the last laugh however, by leaving Nigel the Skoda in his will.

    The Skoda SuperSport 110 was a magnificently ridiculous car. The doors didn’t shut properly. The ignition only started if the right hand indicator was on. It leaked in the rain and sounded like a kettle the very second it hit 51 mph. The most striking thing however, was not about the car. No, the most striking thing was this; before starting the car, Nigel would turn on the radio, detune it so there was nothing but static, and then turn it up to maximum volume. Only then would he start the car up.

    There was no point attempting conversation once the radio was on. One day, I asked him before we got in:

    LM: Nigel Mawson, why do you have the radio up so loud and why don’t you ever tune it? Why don’t you listen to something instead of that terrible static?

    NM: It’s not that loud Lorimer Moseley.

    LM: Oh but it is Nigel Mawson, it is.

    NM: I suppose I did think the horn was busted the other day because I couldn’t hear it over the radio. I have the radio on to get rid of a strange knocking noise this car has. I hate knocking noises.

    LM: (bemused and only vaguely interested look on face): Right

    NM: Yeah, about a month after I got the little shitbox, a year or so ago I guess, I noticed a little tapping noise, somewhere at the front there (Nigel waved a disinterested hand toward the front of the car). It went away when I turned on the radio, so I didn’t think more about it. The radio has somethin’ wrong with it so that every time I get in here I have to turn it up again. Then the radio went completely jiggered and had basically no volume - I could hear the tapping noise something fierce in the gaps between sentences or songs. So I shifted the tuning a bit and that seemed to do the trick.

    LM: So what was- what is, the noise?

    NM: Fucked if I know. Fucked if I care.

    LM: You are a very interesting man Nigel Mawson

    NM: And you are a prying little prick Lorimer Moseley

    I learnt fairly early on to not take such insults as if they are meant to mean what they say. With Nigel, and most of the people with whom I worked, such insults were rather complimentary. Nigel was right about the noise – as soon as he started the engine up, I couldn’t hear a thing. Although I could feel it. I could feel the whole car thumping from side to side. The Skoda felt like it would break apart any minute. I must have looked a little surprised because Nigel shouted over the radio fuzz:

    NM: She’s a bit rough. Sit on your coat, stick your feet on that wine cask and wedge your arm in under that bar – that way you’ll hardly notice it.

    So, I sat on my coat, put my feet on the wine cask and wedged my arm in under the bar. It all but concealed the violence of the bump and now it just felt like we were on a flat bottom raft in choppy seas. Nigel was certainly satisfied and we drove toward my house in silence. Except the radio.

    My house was at the bottom of a dead-end street, the entrance to which had a little

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