The importance of Pain - No Pain No Gain

Where does it hurt? Does it hurt all the time? When did it start hurting? Does anything make the pain feel better? What makes it worse? Such are some of the questions one has to answer to the Doctor or any other health professional as a clue in figuring out what is wrong with him or her.

A study in the November 12, 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Association (JAMA) found that common pain and musculoskeletal problems cost American companies more than sixty one billion dollars ($ 61 b) per year in lost productivity and reduced performance.

According to the data report from a research conducted in Arlington South Orthopedic Clinic, Texas, Six hundred and thirty-five orthopedic patients who were consecutively referred to an outpatient pain assessment service were grouped into one of five pain-duration categories: 0-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, 9-12 months, and more than 12 months.

Comprehensive psychosocial assessment of the patients revealed that longer pain-duration patients are older, complain of greater body surface in pain, have had more surgery, have been out of work longer, report taking more pain medication, have been married more times, are more likely to be involved in worker's compensation, and report a greater likelihood of current suicidal ideation.

In addition, patients with longer pain duration showed higher pain intensity and sensitivity, less confidence in coping ability, higher dependency traits, and greater reliability of self-report. Finally, longer pain duration was associated with reports of more symptoms of psychopathologic disturbance, especially in patients with pain durations from 9 to 12 months. Because the data presented are correlation in nature, prospective analysis of the psychosocial adjustment of orthopedic pain patients is suggested. But what is Pain and what does one mean by the word “pain From the Webster’s dictionary, pain is a physical suffering or distress as due to injury, illness, etc.

Pain refers to a distressing sensation in a particular part of the body as in back pain. Pain can also be a mental or emotional suffering or torment as in “I am sorry my news causes you such pain” or “your sarcasm pained me”.

Hence, to cause pain is to hurt or injure. Scientifically, we experience pain in one part of the body or the other when impulses arising from conflicts at these parts of the body are mostly transferred to the brain. The brain interprets these impulses and we become aware of what is going on and take the necessary actions.

Pain is a distressing sensation and pain is also a torment but what causes pain? Action and reaction are equal and opposite. In other words, for every action, there is always an equal but opposite reaction. Under normal circumstances, the magnitude of the action is expected to be equal to the magnitude of the reaction even though they are opposite in direction. We can predict the direction of a soccer ball especially when we give it a kick against the wall.

Without any distortion or disturbance, one will expect the ball coming back to where it started from (the foot). However, under normal circumstances, the ball changes slightly in direction. Instead of landing on the foot, the ball might come straight to the face, causing pain (nose bleeding).

Since distortion and disturbance are part of life, one can say that we suffer pain because pain is part of life. We can change our actions to meet the necessary reactions but what about the actions of others? Without first kicking the ball, then there would not be any reaction (nose bleeding) hence do we suffer from our own actions? Giving our “dirtiest” kick for example can cause some unpleasant sensations in our veins.

What about the reactions of others? Can’t we suffer from someone else’s shot especially when we serve as the wall in this case? We suffer from direct shots aimed at us. We can also suffer from the changes in the direction of someone else’s shot due to distortion and disturbance. We can suffer in this case especially when we are not aware of what someone else is doing or when someone else is not aware of our presence.

However, without any distortion or disturbance, we do not expect someone at where we are not expecting him or her and hence we cannot suffer from their actions. We suffer from other’s actions because distortion and disturbance are part of Life. Hence removing distortions and disturbances can be a pain relief.

Pain implies disturbance and pain implies distortion. However, since distortion and disturbance are part of life, removing disturbance and distortion can result in an incomplete life. This shows that pain serves a very important function in terms of life. Germs, bacteria, viruses and other pathogens cause great disturbances within the body of humans and other organism. The results of these disturbances are what we called pain.

Pain here is what brings the presence of these harmful organisms within our bodies in to our awareness. In other words, “No pain, no gain”

pain is very important especially if you want to live. life without pain is meaningless. Life full of pain is meaningless too. Life with some pain is how nature works.

[Ami69]

many people think that pain is a bad thing. yes pain is something unpleasant but without pain, we can not experience the true meaning of life. Just yesterday i saw it on the television a kid in Africa suffering from foot rot. The kid did not feel anything happening to his left foot. He woke up one morning and discovered that rats have eaten off a portion of his foot. He did not feel the pain and hence he couldn't wake up on time to protect his foot. if he had felt the pain, then he could have prevented the rats from eaten off his foot. this is a very sad story but i think it shows the importance of pain in our daily lives.

[nica]

Originally Posted by Ami69

many people think that pain is a bad thing. yes pain is something unpleasant but without pain, we can not experience the true meaning of life. Just yesterday i saw it on the television a kid in Africa suffering from foot rot. The kid did not feel anything happening to his left foot. He woke up one morning and discovered that rats have eaten off a portion of his foot. He did not feel the pain and hence he couldn't wake up on time to protect his foot. if he had felt the pain, then he could have prevented the rats from eaten off his foot. this is a very sad story but i think it shows the importance of pain in our daily lives.

We all think pain is bad but as the saying goes what won't kill you will only make you stronger

[cuitw]

Originally Posted by nica

We all think pain is bad but as the saying goes what won't kill you will only make you stronger

Very true. Pain is the motivity that drives us to learn from experience. Sometimes kids learn the danger of fire when they got burned but the better way is to learn from the experience of others. If their parents tell them fire could hurt them and they listened, they can avoid the pain of getting burned. In fact we are sharing the experience of others everyday, watching TV and movies, listening to radio, reading and even chatting.

One weakness of human being is that we are blind when there is nothing to worry about. People get stronger when they are in hard times but become unaware of the potential danger when they are happy. So think and observe when you are happy.

[priyeshu]

Pain is always important for us. IF you don't face pain you should not be happy to gain. Pain will be always waiting for you in your life. It's you who'd have to sue it.

[7Heartz]

Pain is a very important thing to have. Sure it's not something you'd like to feel, but it helps you learn about many things. It helps you grow (i.e. when you work out; muscle fibres breaking and reforming) and become more experienced in life.