I’ve had a colonoscopy (without pain relief) where they took biopsies. The doctors said the biopsies wouldn’t hurt because the colon couldn’t feel pain, and they were indeed painless. The amount of air they pumped in was horrifically painful however.
Trapped gas sounds trivial, but can also be extremely painful. Ulcerative colitis also hurts. So does diarrhoea.
So how do these pain mechanisms work? What causes the pain, if the interior of the colon is unfeeling?
In: Biology
Doctor here, please let me know if I haven’t explained well enough:
Pain in organs (visceral pain) is very different to the pain you’re used to experiencing in your skin/muscle (musculoskeletal pain). We have very sensitive pain receptors which localize all sorts of pain in the skin/muscles (including touch (pressure, cutting)/temperature/inflammation) – we have evolved this because it is very important we know quickly and accurately if there’s a problem in our musculoskeletal system.
Internal organs have pain receptors, but not for touch – someone could be cutting your internal organs and you wouldn’t feel it. They do have pain receptors for stretch (e.g. Bad gas), inflammation (e.g. Appendicitis) and when they’re oxygen starved (e.g. Heart attack). These pain receptors are poorly mapped by the brain, which is why heart attack pain can be felt as jaw or arm pain, and pain in the liver can be felt as shoulder pain.
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