Dealing With Pain

Copyright (c) 2008 Stephen Lau

Pain is not localized because it is the outcome of a series of reactions in the body and the mind. Pain is felt and experienced only when the injured area sends signals through your nervous system to your brain, which receives and interprets these signals.

Pain is always connected with inflammation. When the injured area becomes inflamed, the inflammatory response intensifies, and so does your perception of pain.

What should you do when dealing with pain? Most people's first reaction in dealing with pain is to stop the pain with a painkiller - it is understandable. However, this may not be the best option for dealing with pain, because it only temporarily relieves the pain but does not prevent the pain from happening again.

If you have chest pain, which may portend an imminent heart attack; your priority is to avoid the heart attack rather than the pain itself. In fact, sometimes pain may be a positive sign of warning of the imminence of a disease. Therefore, in dealing with pain, it is important to prevent a health crisis rather than just suppressing the pain.

Take another example: if you are prone to migraine attacks, your priority in life is to prevent a migraine episode from happening, rather than dealing with the pain that results from the crisis. Migraines are not caused by trauma, but by chemicals in your body that control pain and inflammation. Accordingly, to deal with migraines is to anticipate and control the inflammation, rather than the resultant migraine pain. Like the common cold, once it has started, taking vitamin C or a cold tablet will not stop the cold - you just have to let it run its course. Any cold medication may only further weaken your immunity down the road, just as a painkiller may make your body more toxic, and thus more susceptible to pain in future.

Therefore, dealing with pain is not to influence your perception of pain, but to stop the damage from causing the pain in the first place.

Using diet is the most effective way in dealing with pain (see my previous article), not only by preventing the occurrence of pain but also by combating the pain itself. For example, hot chili peppers contain a chemical called capsaicin, which is effective in blocking your nerves from transmitting pain messages to your brain. Capsaicin is one of the most important active ingredients in ointments used for arthritis, shingles, and post-mastectomy pain.

Apart form diet, exercise also helps you boost your pain resistance. Your body makes natural painkillers - enkephalins and endorphins. Exercise may activate these chemicals in your body. This is best explained by pain tolerance in competitive athletes. In vigorous competitive sports, the body releases endorphins to block out pain perception. The kind of exercise that stimulates endorphin release is aerobic - bicycling, running, and walking - exercise that pumps your heart and works out your lungs, as opposed to weight lifting that targets only your muscles.

Acupuncture is another way to deal with pain.

For thousands of years, acupuncture has been used by the Chinese to decrease pain by increasing the release of endorphins. Many acu-points are located near nerves. When stimulated, these nerves cause a dull ache or feeling of fullness in the muscle. The stimulated muscle then sends a message to the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord), causing the release of endorphins. The theory is based on the belief that there is "qi" (vital life energy) coursing through your body, and that diseases are caused by lack of balance between the positive and negative energies in an individual. Acupuncture not only generates its analgesic effects through sensory stimulation, but also removes the problem that causes the pain.