Chronic (Hardback)

Gillian Best

Millions of people live with chronic pain – everyday life is difficult and treatment is unreliable. So why is it still so poorly understood? And will there ever be a cure?

Chronic pain is one of the great public health crises of our age – virtually no one is untouched, either living with it themselves or seeing their loved ones suffer. Yet it is a topic that remains in the shadows, too often brushed aside or treated as an afterthought. Chronic: Understanding Pain is an urgent and vital answer to this silence.

In this fascinating investigation, Gillian Best seeks out researchers carrying out the cutting-edge work that could be the key to finally understanding and effectively treating this debilitating condition. Shining a light on the groundbreaking investigations being carried out around the world, Gillian searches for answers and wonders whether, one day, she may feel truly well again.

Gillian Best is a philanthropy writer at UCL, and has previously worked at King’s College London and the University of Cambridge. Her debut novel, The Last Wave, was shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Award and she holds a PhD in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Glasgow. Originally from Waterloo, Canada, Gillian lives in Bristol. She has ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease, Raynaud’s, and is hearing-impaired.

“Brilliant … On the knotty problem of chronic pain, the wretched subject that nature and life have bequeathed her, Best, despite everything, manages to lift the spirit.”

The Times