Pain

We all have personal experience of pain. Pain of different sorts. Sometimes when our feet hits on a stone…sometimes when our head bump into a wall….sometimes while cutting our nails and here comes an ouch…sometimes its headache, a stomach cramp…….it can be anything like that.

We all don’t perceive pain in the same way. Some people get more pain out of a similar experience/injury. This has a lot to do with our emotional and psychological condition or level. This again has something to do with how we are brought up. My wife and I are best example. When I was a child, if at all I end-up in injuries or wounds, I used to hide if from my father to avoid scolding or beating. Thus bearing pain without much complaint became part of me. And the opposite is the case with my wife. She was too much pampered (there are reasons) and hence she reacts in a different way ( as if there is more pain for her….am not telling she is faking).

How does the pain mechanism work in our body? We all know that it’s mainly coz of nerves or peripheral nerves, better put, that we feel pain. Is it a very simple process?

Nerves play the role of communication channel between spinal chord and skin. At one end, that is, at the skin end, nerves have receptors which can sense pressure, tissue damage, heat, cold etc. These nerves send signals in the form of electrical impulses to the spinal chord. These signals are received at a place called dorsal horn, at the spinal chord end. Then neurotransmitters are released. I had written about neurotransmitters when I wrote about migraine. Yes, these are same category chemicals. These chemicals then activate those nerves which are responsible for sending signals to the brain.

At the brain, these signals are received by Thalamus. Then, thalamus hands over these messages to three ‘experts’, to find out what exactly it is. These three ‘experts’ are –

1. Somatosensory cortex , which can detect touch, itch, temperature, pain, muscle movement, posture, joint position, facial expression, visceral sensations (like stomach ache) etc , that is, the physical sensations on our body.

2. Frontal cortex, which handles awareness, memory, language, thought, consciousness etc.

3. Limbic system - long term memory, emotions, behavior , sexual stimulation etc, that is mainly emotions

After verifying the signals with these systems or regions, brain sends back appropriate signals (for example we touch a hot pan and here comes ‘PULL/TAKE OUT YOUR HAND IMMEDIATELY’ signal from brain). The ‘feel’ of the pain mostly depends on that signal.

This is only the basic level of understanding. All the organs I mentioned here have many other known and unknown functions too. It is also said that the signals to the spinal chord is goes through a gate mechanism. For stronger signals, the gate opens wider and sometimes if the signal is very weak, it might even gets blocked at the gate. Sometimes the signals get amplified before sending to the brain (well, when I am writing this, I don’t know why).

The brain won’t simply send out a return message, just like that. Sometimes, it asks the body, through signals to release some ‘home made’ painkillers (like endorphin). And brain also considers our ‘that-time’ or ‘at-the-time-of-the incident’ emotional level. Here I can give a personal experience.

The other day, there was heavy rain and wind. It looked like a storm. I heard the stoning sound created by the hailstones. There was thunder and lightning too. I was very hungry and was cooking something to eat. As I started eating, then rain peaked. Windows weren’t closed and hence water started entering into the rooms through windows. Then comes a call from my wife asking me get ready and come down to help her reach home, since it was very difficult for her to carry her laptop and walk. It was a crisis situation. To eat or not? To wipe out the water that came through the windows or not, change dress and go down or not…where to start, what is the priority? (wife called me on the way). I decided to close the window, and then rush down. Then I got a call from my wife again. I thought I am late and she already reached the main gate before me. In the hurry-burry , I got stung by a honey bee! It really was painful but there wasn’t any time to attend the pain. So I just removed the ‘needle’ injected by the bee and rushed out. I wasn’t much affected by the pain till I was back home … then my body said ‘hey, it really pains’ and I saw the swelling. ….so the emotion sometimes weakens the physical pain originating from a particular body part…

So, though its just we hitting our toe, it has something to do with our emotional level, psychological level, age, sex, our attitude, social and cultural background, the way we are brought up, how much we used to complain/call for help when there was pain, past pain experience etc . Based on that, different people would get different ‘feel’ or intensity for same mishap.