PAIN

How Does Pain Affect A Person's Life

Outline

This paper is going to discuss the nature of pain and how it affects a person's life. In the introductory part the paper explains what pain is and how we can describe it in simple terms. In the overview section, this study discusses the various types of pains and their effects on person's life. In the end, a strong conclusion supports the ideas and arguments discussed in this paper.

Introduction

Pain is an unpleasant, subjective experience that typically accompanies physical or psychological distress. Pain is usually described as being either nociceptive (in response to actual or potential tissue damage) or neuropathic (caused by dysregulated nervous system activity). (Basbaum and Julius, 2006) Therefore, this study is going to discuss that how pain is affecting us in our normal life.

Overview

According to the International Association for the Study of Pain, pain is “an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (quoted in Chapman and Gavrin 1993:5). It may be acute (that is, of limited duration and with a specific meaning) or it may be chronic (that is, of unlimited duration and with no specific meaning, or with a specific meaning that is already held). It is relatively easy for individuals to tolerate the pain of sunburn, minor headaches, stubbed toes, insults, or failure to receive what they perceives to be their due. In chronic pain, physical or psychological, the pain no longer operates as a signal that something is wrong. The person who is feeling the unrelieved pain of a growing tumor already knows that something is wrong.

Nociceptive pain begins with nociceptors: specialized transducing elements in the tissue that convert heat, cold, and mechanical energy to electrical signals. These signals are sent to the central nervous system via two main types of nerve fibers. Thin, A-Delta fibers transmit a fast, sharp pain that causes an organism to quickly withdraw from the dangerous stimulus. A second deep and throbbing pain, mediated by C fibers, causes the organism to protect the damaged area while it heals. These nociceptive signals ascend the spinal cord and terminate in the brain where the experience of pain is generated. The pain experience itself further involves numerous brain regions associated with the sensory (thalamus and somatosensory cortex), affective (hypothalamus, medial thalamus, and limbic system), and cognitive (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) components of pain. Other brain regions, such as the periaqueductal gray and rostral ventromedial medulla, can increase or decrease the experience of pain. These structures modify nociceptive signaling in the spinal cord via descending dopaminergic, serotonergic, and norepinephrinergic pathways.

Pain may also have neuropathic origins. (McMahon and Koltzenburg, 2006) Neuropathic pain is caused by damage or dysregulation in the peripheral or central nervous system. The altered pain response causes a state of hyperexcitability in the neurons that relay nociceptive information. This state of hyperexcitability can result in a continuous output of pain signals, even in the absence of any observable tissue ...