By Paula Kamen

Category: Biography & Autobiography, Memoirs, Health & Fitness, Pain Management
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Pub Date: February 15, 2005
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0738209031

At the age of twenty-four, journalist Paula Kamen's life changed in an instant. While putting in her contact lenses, the left lens set off a chain reaction, igniting a constellation of nerves that radiated backwards from behind the surface of her eye. The pain was more piercing than with any other headache she had experienced. More than a decade later, she still has a headache-the exact same headache. From surgery to a battery of Botox injections to a dousing of Lithuanian holy water, from a mountain of pharmaceutical products to aromatherapy and even a vibrating hat, All in My Head chronicles the sometimes frightening, usually absurd, and always ineffective remedies she-and so many like her-was willing to try to relieve her pain. Beleaguered and frustrated by doctors who, frustrated themselves, periodically declared her pain psychosomatic, Kamen came to understand the plight of the millions who suffer chronic pain in its many forms. Full of self-deprecating humor, and razor sharp reporting, All in My Head is the remarkable story of perseverance, acceptance, and patience in the face of terrifying pain.

Paula Kamen is the author of Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution and Feminist Fatale. Her commentaries and satires have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon, Ms., and the Chicago Tribune, as well as in many anthologies, including Appeal to Reason: The Best 25 Years of In These Times and Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp: The Best of Might Magazine. She lives in Chicago.