Taking a Fresh Look at Your Relationship with Pain
Below are some excerpts from a review written by Clifford J. Woolf, MD; for Physiology in Medicine: A Series of Articles Linking Medicine with Science. Dr. Woolf discusses his understanding of pain from a more technical perspective than you’ll see later. I’ll use his information as a starting point to introducing you to a fuller understanding of pain than you may have learned before.
Pain is a multidimensional sensory experience that is intrinsically unpleasant and associated with hurting and soreness. It may vary in intensity (mild, moderate, or severe), quality (sharp, burning, or dull), duration (transient, intermittent, or persistent), and referral (superficial or deep, localized or diffuse). Although it is essentially a sensation, pain has strong cognitive and emotional components. It is also associated with avoidance motor reflexes and alterations in autonomic output. All of these traits are inextricably linked in the experience of pain.
Pain can be essentially divided into 2 broad categories: adaptive and maladaptive. Adaptive pain contributes to survival by protecting the organism from injury or promoting healing when injury has occurred. Maladaptive pain, in contrast, is an expression of the pathologic operation of the nervous system; it is pain as disease.
The sensory experience of acute pain caused by a noxious stimulus is mediated by a specialized high-threshold sensory system, the nociceptive system. This system extends from the periphery through the spinal cord, brain stem, and thalamus to the cerebral cortex, where the sensation is perceived. To prevent damage to tissue, we have learned to associate certain categories of stimuli with danger that must be avoided if at all possible. This association is formed by linking noxious stimuli with a sensation that is intense and unpleasant: that is, pain. The sensation of pain must be strong enough that it demands immediate attention.
What is Pain?
There are numerous different definitions for pain. The most widely accepted definition of pain is the one used by The International Association for the Study of Pain. It defines pain as “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience arising from actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage.”
The Web version of the Encyclopedia Britannica defines pain as – “A complex experience consisting of a physiological (bodily) response to a noxious stimulus followed by an affective (emotional) response to that event. Pain is a warning mechanism that helps to protect an organism by influencing it to withdraw from harmful stimuli. It is primarily associated with injury or the threat of injury, to bodily tissues.”
The American Academy of Pain Medicine defines pain as – “An unpleasant sensation and emotional response to that sensation.”
The definition of pain that some believe is the most appropriate for use in clinical practice was given by Margo McCaffrey in 1968. He defined pain as “whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does.”
Pain Is a Signal That Communicates Information
The easiest way to understand pain is to recognize that every time you feel pain your body is attempting to tell you that something is wrong. Pain sensations are critical to human survival. Without pain you would have no way of knowing that something is wrong with your body. So without pain you would be unable to take action to correct the problem or situation that is causing your pain.
What Is Your Pain Trying To Tell You?
Whenever you are experiencing pain, it’s always helpful to ask: “What is my pain trying to tell me?” I believe that pain is trying to tell you that something is wrong and that you had better find out what exactly is wrong and find a way to fix it. To learn more about pain and effectivce chronic pain management check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.
If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on August 5-7, 2010. To learn more about this and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.
You can learn about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.
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