Still Hurting? FIND HEALTH!

Still Hurting? FIND HEALTH! presents a new model of disease, which empowers readers suffering with pain, symptoms (e.g., fatigue), and symptom syndromes (e.g., irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue) that doctors can't explain. Whatever their philosophical, spiritual, religious, or secular world views, readers will discover how and why they hurt and what they can do to help themselves and work effectively with their caring professionals.

Still Hurting? FIND HEALTH! presents a new model of disease, which empowers readers suffering with pain, symptoms (e.g., fatigue), and symptom syndromes (e.g., irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue) that doctors can't explain. Whatever their philosophical, spiritual, religious, or secular world views, readers will discover how and why they hurt and what they can do to help themselves and work effectively with their caring professionals. EVERYONE HURTS. Everyone is symptomatic from time to time, and many hurt chronically. Symptoms include pain anywhere (such as head, jaw, neck, back, chest, abdomen, pelvis, or bladder), or pain everywhere (widespread pain), stomachaches associated with bowel trouble, and/or fatigue. One in every two primary care patients suffers from symptoms that cannot be explained by medical tests. Nevertheless, they are real symptoms, which are not imagined or "all in the mind." In fact, we are all part of a worldwide epidemic of these "medically unexplained symptoms," which leaves sufferers and their caregivers — physicians, psychologists, spiritual counselors, and alternative healers — frustrated, fragmented, and confused. Increasing the complexity of the diagnostic problem are specialists who label collections of these medically unexplained symptoms as “symptom syndromes” called, “functional somatic syndromes” or “central sensitivity syndromes” (“functional” refers to how the body works and “central” refers to the mind/brain). Examples of these syndromes include, tension headaches, irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and multiple chemical sensitivity. Scientific studies confirm that medically unexplained symptoms and symptom syndromes frequently occur together and overlap, and that they are commonly associated with stress, depression, and/or anxiety. These interrelationships of symptoms and symptom syndromes are very confusing and difficult for both patients and caregivers to understand. All too often, patients do leave doctors’ offices feeling like the symptoms are all in their heads. Patients are fragmented from within (with seemingly unrelated and unexplained multiple symptoms) and from without (with multiple caregivers seemingly not relating to each other about their care). Very few see the bigger picture regarding the symptoms epidemic, because no one is asking the right questions. Everyone's vision — patients and caring professionals — is blurred by lack of understanding and misunderstanding. The view of specialists is obscured by the narrow focus of their discipline, specialty, training, and insight. But patients should not despair, because there is hope once they know how to see the big picture clearly. When people learn to ask the right questions, they can get the right answers about their health, beginning with the following basic questions: What if I could discover what's really behind my symptoms? What if I could see clearly how and why they occur? What if I could learn how to stop hurting? Readers will see clearly with the authors' unique new model of disease, because it does not narrowly focus upon a single branch of knowledge. Instead, it comprehends that it is the integration of wisdom of ancient healing traditions, modern science, medicine, psychology, sociology, spirituality, and faith, which provides the basis for understanding why people are symptomatic and how they can find health.

William B. Salt II, M.D., a board-certified gastroenterologist and Reverend Thomas L. Hudson, M.Div., J.D. collaboratively educate people about their medically unexplained pain, symptoms, and symptom syndromes from an integrated, holistic perspective. Their new book is entitled, Still Hurting? FIND HEALTH! Discover What’s Behind Your SYMPTOMS (That Doctors Can’t Explain), and their Website is stillhurtingfindhealth.com William B. Salt II, M.D. is board-certified in both internal medicine and gastroenterology. He received his M.D. degree from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in 1972, where he currently holds an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor in Medicine. He trained for five additional years in internal medicine and gastroenterology at Vanderbilt University Hospitals in Nash­ville, Tennessee, where he also served as a Chief Resident in Medicine. He returned home to Columbus, Ohio and practiced gastroenterology for 33 years. Dr. Salt’s primary hospital was Mt. Carmel Health, which is a teaching hospital and affiliate of The Ohio State University. His awards and honors include: Mount Carmel 2009 Physician of the Year; Dr. Judah Folkman Scientist in Residence at his alma mater, Bexley High School in Columbus, Ohio in 2003; Distinguished Educator of the Year 2000 by The Ohio State University; Mount Carmel Family Practice Residency Teacher of the Year, 1995-1996 (first non-family practice physician recipient) ; Mount Carmel Teacher of the Year in Medicine, 1978–1979; Regular inclusion in Best Doctors in America® Dr. Salt is the author of the first edition and coauthor of the revised edition of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the MindBodySpirit Connection and Fibromyalgia and the MindBodySpirit Connection. The second edition of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the MindBodySpirit Connection was one of Library Journal's 23 Best Consumer Health Books 2002. He has written numerous medical journal articles and several chapters in books for physicians and health care professionals. Reverend Thomas L. Hudson is a 1973 honors graduate of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He also holds a J.D. degree from Capital University Law School where he graduated “magna cum laude.” With a passion for both the law and ministry, he has interacted with thousands of needful people. For twenty-five years, he served churches across the spectrum of geography, culture, and ethnicity. He began his ministry in Clovis, New Mexico. Trained there as a volunteer police chaplain, he was on call twenty-four hours a day. The 3:00 a.m. emergency phone calls shaped his ministry and honed his empathy for those who were broken and lived on the edge. He later served in New Orleans and Columbus, his home town. Always community focused, he has been a crisis intervention counselor, guest lecturer, and board chair for both the Franklin County Child Abuse and Child Neglect Advisory Board and Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio, the second largest non-profit agency in the Columbus area.