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| PAIN |
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What exactly is pain? What does it mean to the person that hurts?
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What exactly is pain? What does it mean to the person that hurts? Does the general public need a scientific explanation of what pain really is at its chemical, biological, electrical levels? I don’t think people really care, they just don’t like it. People want pain to go away. How do we make pain go away?
Before we answer that , allow me to divert. My question to you is this. If you were to design a machine that’s operation was crucial to your survival, would that machine have a warning system to notify you if something was wrong? My machine certainly would. If that light or siren went off on your machine, would you find out why the light was going off or would you simply unscrew the light bulb. I promise that it is easier to unscrew the bulb, but is that the right answer? I think you know the answer. If you were laying in bed on some stormy night and noticed a wet spot forming on the ceiling above your bed, would you patch the drywall or find out where the water was coming from and fix the source? The wet ceiling, while presenting a problem in and of itself, is warning you of the more serious problem of a leak within your house. People know that they have to fix the leak before they fix the drywall, it’s simply intuitive.
So does the human body have a warning system for underlying problems? We absolutely do. When we hurt, the body is telling us that something is wrong. There are a very minute amount of conditions floating around where the actual problem is pain itself. So when you have a leak in your house, you fix the roof. When a warning light goes off in your car, you find out why and get it fixed. Why is it that in every other aspect of our life, when warned of impending danger, we search for remedy at the problems source, but when it is our own health and well being, we as a society would rather silence the sirens and darken the warning lights. When we take a pain-killer, we are not fixing the problem. Pain killers are designed to interfere with the transmission of pain signals to the brain. In other words, your body at a cellular level still identifies a threat or dysfunction, but when it sends the signal to notify you at a conscious level, it is met by a boarded up passageway denying it entry. All we have done is eliminate the warning while the problem is allowed to remain or progress.
It does not stop here. Have you ever been told why you get a fever? Did you know that not only does a fever warn you of infection, but it also creates an internal environment unfavorable to bacteria as well as boosts your own immune system to fight the infection? It is a double whammy! In the fight against bacteria, we have stunted the enemy’s energy while boosting our own defense. So when we take fever reducers, we have effectively attacked our own troops in the war on infection. How is that for collateral damage? I am not saying that pain relief is bad or fever reduction not warranted in some cases, I am simply saying that we were designed to warn ourselves of dysfunction. We were designed to fight off intrusion. Many of the drugs we consume impede our ability to locate problems and fight disease affectively. We rely on them though because they ease our suffering. They make us more comfortable. I know that there is another way. I know that our body is ready and willing to fight glorious battles with a symphony of actions and reactions that we will never be able to comprehend or calculate. I understand that pain is not only a problem, but believe it or not, part of the solution. When the pain naturally goes away, we know that we are on the right path to wellness. Maybe, just maybe, at some point in society’s future, a concerted effort might be made to work with our body, not against it, in the fight against disease. Until that day, I will continue to do all I can from our little office in Kickapoo, IL, to improve the quality of life in as many as possible.
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Posted on Mar 09, 2010 10:02am by drbarnewolt
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