Pain — Do We Really Understand It?

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Abstract

that is soon to be ready.</p><p id="badc">Only after these events was I reminded that my leg was not quite normal. I stretched a bit and felt a pulling of low level tightness in my leg.</p><h2 id="abd0">That brings me to the key point in my original article: Pain is “a pattern different from the normal array of signals” sensed by our brains. The absence of pain is a state of mind with attention focused on our interaction with the external environment.</h2><p id="1bcb">As my pain disappears, there is no “Pain-Off” signal. The absence of pain is established by the cognitive brain to attend to the normal environment. And that is what pain management has to be about. At some p

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oint after an injury, in the middle of the healing process, the nerves in the injured → healing tissue has to be trained that the normal movements are normal. In chronic pain, that is impossible and the goal is to mitigate the impact of the abnormal signals. And so on.</p><p id="7261">Based on all of my background, I propose that current medial pain treatment is stuck on the concept of turning the pain off. It is a cognitive paradigm shift (fancy words for a new way of thinking) to think of the absence of pain as a return of attention to the normal interaction with the environment.</p><p id="265e">Kermit smells the flowers and forgets that he is healed.</p></article></body>

Pain — Do We Really Understand It? — ADDENDUM

Images Coutesy of Alexas_Fotos and LoggaWiggle on Pixabay

I woke up a little after 4 AM. I missed my first alarm that goes off just before 4. The second alarm on my phone was about to go off. (I love my smart phone alarm feature. It is like having a variable snooze alarm function. I can choose in advance how much added snooze I get.) Now it is time to get up. I decide to do a little bit of a stretch, thinking about that great cup of coffee that is soon to be ready.

Only after these events was I reminded that my leg was not quite normal. I stretched a bit and felt a pulling of low level tightness in my leg.

That brings me to the key point in my original article: Pain is “a pattern different from the normal array of signals” sensed by our brains. The absence of pain is a state of mind with attention focused on our interaction with the external environment.

As my pain disappears, there is no “Pain-Off” signal. The absence of pain is established by the cognitive brain to attend to the normal environment. And that is what pain management has to be about. At some point after an injury, in the middle of the healing process, the nerves in the injured → healing tissue has to be trained that the normal movements are normal. In chronic pain, that is impossible and the goal is to mitigate the impact of the abnormal signals. And so on.

Based on all of my background, I propose that current medial pain treatment is stuck on the concept of turning the pain off. It is a cognitive paradigm shift (fancy words for a new way of thinking) to think of the absence of pain as a return of attention to the normal interaction with the environment.

Kermit smells the flowers and forgets that he is healed.