Chronic pain is defined as a long period of time where the pain persists and does not let down. Chronic pain is very different than acute pain as it is more than just a sensation that lets us know we may have a possible injury. This type of pain is usually due to a medical condition or damage to the body. Chronic pain can cause many different types of feeling and emotions such as hopelessness, anger, anxiety, etc. Some ways to treat chronic pain are through surgery, physical therapy, rehabilitation, or medication. Chronic pain does not discriminate; it affects people all over the world. Approximately 60 million people or “10% of the world’s population endures chronic pain” (Goldberg & McGee, 2011). It is hard to get an accurate statistic
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Some pain may be more severe and some may be milder. Acute pain is short-term pain that you may experience after an accident, such as falling off your bike and breaking your arm. Once the injury is healed, the pain will go away. Chronic pain is more persistent and requires long-term treatment or therapy. People with chronic pain process the pain differently in their brain. To prove this theory, MRI scans have been used to show the abnormal amount of stimulation in the brain of someone with chronic pain. Elliot Krane’s TED talk explained how pain and the brain work together like a “junction box”. The easiest way to explain how the brain sends out pain signals, for example, would be “if you hit your thumb with a hammer, these wires in your arm — that, of course, we call nerves — transmit the information into the junction box in the spinal cord where new wires, new nerves, take the information up to the brain where you become consciously aware that your thumb is now hurt” (Krane, 2011). Neurotransmitters divide out on the spinal cord and interact with glial cells. Glial cell’s DNA synthesizes proteins that collaborate with nerves then spit out neurotransmitters. This is a positive feedback loop. In both acute and chronic pain, the response to pain starts in the nerves then heads to the spinal cord then makes its way to the brain. Pain receptors stop firing in acute pain after the injury has been healed …show more content…
My first thought to this question was of course I would want to live with no pain whatsoever! However, I tried to imagine a life without pain and what dangers can actually come from feeling no pain. Pain is a natural alarm and it warns us when something is not right. It is there for a reason. Say someone handed you a scolding hot bowl of soup and they did not warn you it was hot, you would gulp it down not knowing you just severely burnt your throat. If you got injured very badly and just walked it off as it was nothing because you felt no pain, the injury could get even worse and lead to a worse outcome. Pain is not all so bad because we have medications, therapies, and medical professionals to help ease the pain in any way possible. Pain is not a great feeling at all, but it is a better feeling knowing that once the pain goes away, you have healed. (WORD COUNT: …
Some pain may be more severe and some may be milder. Acute pain is short-term pain that you may experience after an accident, such as falling off your bike and breaking your arm. Once the injury is healed, the pain will go away. Chronic pain is more persistent and requires long-term treatment or therapy. People with chronic pain process the pain differently in their brain. To prove this theory, MRI scans have been used to show the abnormal amount of stimulation in the brain of someone with chronic pain. Elliot Krane’s TED talk explained how pain and the brain work together like a “junction box”. The easiest way to explain how the brain sends out pain signals, for example, would be “if you hit your thumb with a hammer, these wires in your arm — that, of course, we call nerves — transmit the information into the junction box in the spinal cord where new wires, new nerves, take the information up to the brain where you become consciously aware that your thumb is now hurt” (Krane, 2011). Neurotransmitters divide out on the spinal cord and interact with glial cells. Glial cell’s DNA synthesizes proteins that collaborate with nerves then spit out neurotransmitters. This is a positive feedback loop. In both acute and chronic pain, the response to pain starts in the nerves then heads to the spinal cord then makes its way to the brain. Pain receptors stop firing in acute pain after the injury has been healed …show more content…
My first thought to this question was of course I would want to live with no pain whatsoever! However, I tried to imagine a life without pain and what dangers can actually come from feeling no pain. Pain is a natural alarm and it warns us when something is not right. It is there for a reason. Say someone handed you a scolding hot bowl of soup and they did not warn you it was hot, you would gulp it down not knowing you just severely burnt your throat. If you got injured very badly and just walked it off as it was nothing because you felt no pain, the injury could get even worse and lead to a worse outcome. Pain is not all so bad because we have medications, therapies, and medical professionals to help ease the pain in any way possible. Pain is not a great feeling at all, but it is a better feeling knowing that once the pain goes away, you have healed. (WORD COUNT: …