Letters

The Right (and Wrong) Way to Treat Pain

THANK YOU FOR YOUR MOVING AND INsightful cover story on ways to manage chronic pain [Feb. 28]. As a person who has battled debilitating pain for more than five years, I read it with tears in my eyes. But I was encouraged that your magazine took the crucial step of shifting the focus away from pills to other ways of treating the sources of pain. And I can't thank you enough for including fibromyalgia in your article. Many of us who suffer from it still face doctors who fail to recognize this excruciating disease--plunging us into a nightmare that compounds the anxiety, depression and hopelessness and therefore the pain.

MOIRA McLAUGHLIN Los Angeles

RECURRENT PAIN IS GROSSLY UNDERtreated in our society. For tens of millions of Americans, chronic pain is a catastrophic medical condition that can disrupt every aspect of their lives. Still, the vast majority of doctors receive little training in pain management. Patients need to be persistent. It is important for them to find a caring, involved physician specializing in pain management. Essentially, the physician becomes a partner in their care. Advances in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain can significantly improve quality of life. Although pain cannot always be completely eliminated, it can be reduced to the point that people become more functional and get their lives back.

PHILIP J. WAGNER, M.D. New York City

TIME'S REPORTING ON METHODS OF PAIN relief delivered wide-ranging, sound and useful information that I, as a chronic pain sufferer, certainly appreciated. I learned more from your article than I did in all my years of doctor hopping. Kudos to TIME for a job more than well done.

LEA BAYERS RAPP South River, N.J.

I TAKE A PAIN MEDICATION THAT HAS literally given me my life back. Ironically, even the doctor who prescribed it thinks much of my pain is "psychological." The only response I have for such doctors is to say that chronic pain can happen to anyone. It might even happen to you.

DEBBIE DELLENBACH La Crosse, Wis.

Back-Channel Chats

YOUR REPORT "TALKING WITH THE ENEmy" described secret meetings between U.S. negotiators and Iraqi insurgents [Feb. 28]. A cease-fire would be to the advantage of the U.S. and the rebels. The U.S. could arrange to keep military bases as a guest of Iraq, as in other Middle East countries, with no involvement in its politics. The insurgents could agree to join in a democratic process that is not considered an American program. We would then be able to deal with Iran and North Korea from a position of strength.

CONNELL J. MAGUIRE - CAPTAIN, U.S.N. (RET.) - Riviera Beach, Fla.

Those Snap Decisions

COLUMNIST JOE KLEIN'S "THE BLINK Presidency" [Feb. 28] persuasively captured Bush's tendency to pursue both domestic and foreign policies on the basis of "instantaneous, subconscious decision making." This is an unfortunate tendency. The stakes, as in the Iraq fiasco, have turned out to be devastatingly high for our entire country, tarnishing our image abroad. And if Bush gets his way regarding the "crisis" in Social Security, it will be another dangerous gamble for the American people.

AYODHYA P. GUPTA Somerset, N.J.