What is pain?

Everybody knows the feeling. Some people are constantly suffering by it. But what exactly is pain?   

Before I start let me give you a brief introduction of myself. I’m 24 years old and currently studying physiotherapy in Germany. In my studies I gather knowledge of not only anatomy, physiotherapeutical methods of treatment and massage, but a lot of physiology and the science behind it, too. I believe that this knowledge can help a whole lot of people if only distributed right. And that’s when I stumbled across steemit…   

So, what is Pain? 

First let me make something clear: acute pain is not something bad. It is essentially for living. There is a gene mutation which leads to the inability to feel pain. The life expectancy of people with it is rather low. The second thing you need to know is, that pain is not a sensory perception. There is no such thing as a receptor for pain. Pain is entirely produced by your brain. The receptors which are telling the brain to produce pain are the so called nociceptors.   

The function of these nociceptors is to warn us. They are not only warning us after we got hurt. They can warn us of imminent tissue damage, too. If you poke your leg with your finger till it hurts, this does not mean that you just damaged your leg. It means that, if you keep on poking or increase the pressure there will be a damage.  We have two different types of nociceptors. The first ones are reacting to mechanical stimulus. They are the ones warning us of impending damage. The second ones are reacting to thermal, mechanical and chemical stimulus. They are responsible for the pain after an injury. Not all of them are active all the time. But the ones active can secrete substances which are firstly activating the inactive ones and secondly making the active ones more sensible. These are two reasons we can get sensitized for pain.    

After nociceptors are stimulated they are sending a message to the spinal cord. From here on the message is being led to the brain. The pain is not getting processed in a specific area of the brain. A lot of regions are involved in producing the final pain. Therefore, the resulting pain is depending on a lot of factors. In what kind of situation are you, do you have any experience of it, what kind of emotions are you feeling (e.g. your pain will be greater if you are fearful), is there something more important at hand and so on. You will never feel pain if it could cost you your life. There are stories of soldiers getting shot in the leg who are feeling the pain only after they have run to a safe location, often seeing the blood before feeling the pain. There are also stories of surfers who are, after seeing a shark, feeling some kind of impact to see their leg missing only after they are safe on the beach.  This is possible because your brain has the option to inhibit the signal from the nociceptors at the spinal cord.   

This is just a simplified overview of a part of the physiology of pain and I hope you can understand it despite my writing skills in English. One of my next topics will be the chronification of pain.   

I’m really excited about your feedback and I hope you earned something from reading this!  

[Picture source](https://www.brightfocus.org/glaucoma/article/glaucoma-painful)