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Back Care Basics by Mary Pullig Schatz, M.D. - An excellent book with specific yoga poses for neck pain, back pain, sciatic pain, flatback, lordosis (sway back) and scoliosis pain. (For more of my comments on this book, see my sections on Yoga Postures for Scoliosis, and Yoga for Back Pain.

The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Clair Davies. This is an excellent book on trigger point therapy. I found it to be an effective treatment for fibromyalgia, and intense pain conditions, especially sciatic nerve pain, when any kind of yoga stretch or movement was too painful. My kids use trigger point therapy when their muscles get tight from sports, especially on their ankles and calves. My older son likes sports, but has problems because he is prone to develop tight muscles and fibromyalgia. Yet with the right diet, trigger point therapy and yoga he was still able to play competitive soccer. We just had to do the trigger point therapy on his legs at night after his games to keep his muscles from getting too tight.

Taking Control of TMJ: Your Total Wellness Program for Recovering from Temporomandibular Joint Pain, Whiplash, Fibromyalgia, and Related Disorders by Robert O. Uppguaard, DDS. As of this writing, I think it is simply the best book available for TMJ pain. Many other TMJ books that are written by dentists treat TMJ as a dental only problem. I think that is a simplistic and, most likely, incorrect view of the disorder.

This book is unique in that it views TMJ as a whole body issue. In my case my TMJ pain was from tight muscles in my lower extremities pulling on my jaw and popping it out of place. In order to cure my temporomandibular joint pain - I had to address the root causes - why my muscles were always so tight and unbalanced.

Treatment tips include yoga poses, posture improvement, sleeping position, trigger point therapy and diet. These are exactly the types of treatments that worked for me. Five stars for this book.

(The Back Care Basics and Pain Erasure books noted above are on the recommended reading list for the Taking Control of TMJ book.)

Structural Yoga Therapy: Adapting to the Individual - Another excellent book if you have multiple orthopedic problems that need attention. It has many charts that help you review each of the muscles and joints in your body to determine where your muscles are unbalanced or where you may lack full range of normal of motion. Along with the The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, this would probably the best book to get for stiff joint conditions such as frozen shoulders or knee pain.

It also includes specific information on using yoga to try to correct a variety of seemingly unrelated orthopedic conditions such as scoliosis, immobile joints, lordosis (swayback), kyphosis, pronated ankles, bowed legs, knock knees, feet that turn inward, feet that turn outward, flat back, elevated hips, forward head and rounded shoulders. I found yoga to be much more effective for me for many of these conditions compared to traditional physical therapy.

If you have scoliosis where one shoulder is higher than the other, this book is the only book I've ever read that has poses on how to correct that problem - and they really work, too!

Your Body Knows Best - another book by Louise Ann Gittelman. While her Super Nutrition book focuses more on vitamin and mineral needs, this book has more of a focus on helping people develop the best diet for their individual needs depending on a variety of factors that include ancestry and how easily they tend to burn off calories. It has extensive information on the role of fats, protein and carbohydrates and how the optimal dietary intake percentages of these may vary from person to person.

Many popular nutrition authors, conventional and alternative alike, still cling unfailingly to the notion that everybody should eat a high carbohydrate, low saturated fat, high fiber diet to help them lose weight, lower their blood pressure, prevent blood clots and lower their cholesterol levels. Yet people with connective tissue disorders and related symptoms are often underweight (especially as children), have low blood pressure, bleed or bruise easily and/or have low cholesterol levels. It would be highly illogical to put people with these types of health concerns on diets designed for the typical health problems of the masses. Your Body Knows Best is one of the few books I've read that that helps people to determine if a higher fat, higher protein diet might be best for their unique individual needs.