“An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with or resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage.” – IASP 2020
Why Do We Sense Pain?
Pain is a sensory warning conveyed by specific nerve fibers. Pain signals from all over the body travel through the spinal cord and special nerve fibers and reach the brain. When we experience pain, it is a warning to us to retreat from anything detrimental to us.
What Is the Use of This Sensation?
The pain experienced varies from person to person. Although the neural tissue related to pain develops before birth, a person’s response to pain is influenced by social, psychological and other factors. Persistent pain, which is often annoying, is the message from the warning system linked to long-term conditions like arthritis or back pain. Acute pains are like emergency alerts which need to be attended to earlier.
How Important Is This Sense?
Pain has both physical and mental components – it is a composite signal and a person’s experience of pain depends on how his/her brain interprets the pain signal. The emotions we experience also influence the pain we feel. Therefore, early intervention for pain is important to avoid its chronicity.
When Do We Block It?
Intervention for any type of pain should be started at the earliest. Chemicals called neurotransmitters are responsible for the way the pain signal is transmitted across the body. There are more than a hundred neurotransmitters and they can be both good and bad. Good neurotransmitters reduce the pain while bad ones aggravate it. For blocking the pain, simple medications, nerve blocks, nerve ablations, and neurolysis are used.
Can Physical Pain Be Totally Eradicated?
As far as pain is concerned, eradication is not possible. However, it can be controlled. Attempts to relieve pain typically address both the physiological and the psychological aspects of pain.
How to Have a Pain-Free Life?
Pain and a person’s emotional state are connected. Any negative emotion like anger makes the pain worse while any positive emotion can make the pain seem less.
Role of Anesthesia in Pain Clinic
Anesthesiologists’ role is to help mitigate pain during and after a surgical procedure or trauma of any kind. Proficient anesthesiologists can help manage acute cancer pain with regional and pharmacological analgesia. Well-trained anesthesiologist-pain clinicians can perform interventional treatments safely.
Dr. Karthick Raja Velayutham
Consultant Anaesthesiologist
Kauvery Hospital Chennai