How come pain is delayed when you hit your foot or some other body part on a surface.

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Might just be me, but I always know I’m bout to feel like crap for a few seconds but I have time to prepare for it. Are the nerves just prepared?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some nerves are myelinated, meaning that they are enhanced to send signals extra quick. Pain-detecting nerve cells are unmyelinated, so they don’t send signals as quickly as other nerve cells. This creates a delay between the time of injury and the time of pain recognition. Since the foot is the furthest body part from the brain, that time delay is more noticeable. There are other accounts of people recieving leg injuries, but not feeling the pain until a second later.

TL:DR Pain signals naturally travel slower up to the brain than other signals.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The time it takes for your eyes to see and process what is happening is much faster than the time required for a pain signal to travel from your foot all the way up your leg, up your spinal cord, to your brain to process.