The Perception of Pain

This post is another reflection of mine on Pain and another rambling. It might not hold any value to anyone, just some thoughts that come to mind.

Pain is sometimes physical and sometimes mental, sometimes visible and sometimes invisible. Sometimes some others experience our pain along with us and sometimes it is mysterious and intangible. A talk I had with my aunt, inspired this post.

A close relative of ours had passed away. His sons were very close to him and the family was close knit. When the last rites were to be performed, the pain which the family experienced was so perceptible by everyone around. It is not at all easy to carry on all the death related rites when the new grief is running high. I told my aunt that it would have been impossible for me to carry out these rites. She told me that it is one of the reasons why that most ancient texts prescribe sons to perform last rites. Women have to endure a comparable pain through labour, while men do the same through performing last rites in a time of grief. She went on to say that at least the pain endured by women was short lived and fructified in joy, it was not the same for men who had to be present in the public eye, keep a straight face through tough times. It was interesting for me to see how she perceived pain. One kind was more measurable, short lived and resulted in joy while the other was not really measurable, the life of which could not be anticipated and leaves hearts empty. My feminist friends, please do not jump in and try to prove a point. It is not about men or women, it is about pain in this case.

Sometimes we can point to the exact region where we are hurting and sometimes it is so difficult to do it. Could it be that a pain experienced by the mind is manifesting itself in the form of physical pain? It is hard to say. If you remember my post about the book Complications by Atul Gawande, I had briefly touched up on a point that sometimes all the blood tests, scans and physical exams indicate that nothing is wrong but the person continues to suffer. Pain is one condition that is mysterious. Only the person suffering from it can validate its existence. Sometimes, you may see some inflammation in some part of the body and expect that the individual is in deep pain but in reality, the person is not experiencing any.

Studies show that women report pain more frequently than men. It could partly because men want to appear more macho and not report it, or the perceive it as negligible enough to ignore. However, how well pain is tolerated between genders is not clear. 

How I perceive pain- well, for me everyday or every other day we experience pain of one kind or the other and most of the time we ignore it as it is tolerable or a part of body's day to day wear and tear. My body has a specific way of reacting to pain- even if I think pain is tolerable, I know that my body is unable to tolerate it when I throw up, vomit. It can be any kind of pain, that is how my body copes. Once I throw-up, I can feel my body able to manage the pain much better and the pain disappears completely. If I do not throw-up, I know my body is comfortably managing the pain. 

I think I have rambled enough. These are just thoughts coming in to my mind while writing and I have just transcribed them on to this blog, it probably does not make any sense :-).