Why pain has levels how does body work and why do we feel like the leg fracture I had last week wasn’t that painful like the hand fracture I have right now . And why emotional pain is more hurtful than the physical pain even it doesn’t hurt in body ?
In: Biology
Pain exists in levels? Do you have a source for that? From what I know about pain perception, it exists on a spectrum, like any other human sensory faculty.
Emotional pain, neurologically speaking, is part of higher pain perception faculties. There are processes that are similar for the experience of physical and emotional pain. I would not subscribe to the idea, that emotional pain is more hurtful in general. We’re entering phenomenology there, and I really can’t give you any certain statements about that.
Human brains aren’t binary. They work off thresholds. They get signals and give signals differently based on hormone amounts, signal levels and other conditions.
Basically different hormone levels and signals cause nerves to behave in a certain way. One cell can have many different responses to stimuli.
It is better to imagine every brain cell as a small computer. That considers the inputs and conditions around it that then reaches a conclusion and gives a signal.
Emotional pain is generally worse than physical because we are social animals. Also there are many kinds of emotional pains. We don’t know how or why we evolved them, but it regulated our behaviour in a way that directs our behaviour towards beneficial behavior for our survival. Humans shouldn’t be only considered as individuals, but as part of a group, because a lot of our behaviour revolves around being social.
Pain is your body’s way of saying that something is wrong, and that you need to take some kind of action. That action might be that you need to avoid putting pressure on the area (like a sprained ankle), it might be to drink more water (like a headache), it might be that you actually need to seek medical help. For physical traumas (like broken bones), the amount of pain can depend on how many nerve endings are involved. A paper cut is *very* painful because nerve endings are a bit like tree branches. As you get nearer the surface, there are many more of them than there were deeper inside. This means a paper cut involves a *lot* of endings in a small area.
Emotional pain is similar. It’s your brain’s way of reaction to something bad to avoid it in the future. This could be a loss you’ve suffered (so take care of things or treasure what you have), embarrassed (don’t do the embarrassing thing again), worry or fear (get out of the bad situation), etc. It may also be a sign that you should seek help from someone. If that’s the case, then get help! It’s just as important to see someone about your emotional health as it is to see a doctor about your physical health.
I feel obliged to ask (although you don’t need to answer) if everything’s okay? That fact that you mention two broken bones within a week, as well as emotional pain, is concerning. I don’t know your situation but, if you’re having problems with someone, please don’t be afraid to get help.
Edit: thanks for the gold, kind stranger! But please, go forth and show love to folk!
Those pain scales are mostly used (or better should only be used) to follow pain progression in patients. So if one were to ask a palliative cancer patient how their pain is and they keep reporting increasing numbers you know that you need to adjust your pain medication schedule.
They really cannot be used to judge if patient A is truly feeling more pain as patient B, because pain is completely subjective.
To answer your second question: when you break a bone you obviously get massive tissue damage, this is then reverted to you brain over ‘pain nervs’. The brain gets this signal and then translates this into the sensation of pain. This means that the actual feeling sensation of pain is in our brain and our brain and it’s output is affected by, well ultimately, absolutely everything. Distractions, our general wellbeing, stress, memories of other painfully sensations, etc, etc. In addition to that we also have our bodies own opioids (called endorphins) that are released and can inhibit the pain nerves. There are occasions were people who were severely wounded in combat or an accident, but due to the immense adrenalin and stress of the situation, just did not feel the pain at all. There are also occasions were patients have quite mild injuries, but their pain system is so oversensitized that to them it feels like the worse pain ever.
(Anyway, sorry, not really ELI5, and a bit long, but I find the way our bodies deal with pain super interesting)
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