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Pain and perceived pain in America
By Melissa Martin, Ph.D.
Opioid painkillers, medical marijuana, CBD oil. Pills, patches,
potions. Humans search for a Holy Grail to relieve pain. How can pain
be a gift?
Paul Brand and Philip Yancey authored a book that changed how I view
pain and suffering in the human body. Pain, the Gift Nobody Wants
(1993) is part biography and part medical history. Brand tells his life
history and experiences with pain-afflicted patients in three
countries—21 years in India, 25 years in England, and 27 years in the
United States—and reveals both sides. Pain is a gift that none of us
want and none of us can do without.
“Pain is not the enemy, but the loyal scout announcing the enemy...Pain
truly is the gift nobody wants....On my travels I have observed an
ironic law of reversal at work: as a society gains the ability to limit
suffering, it loses the ability to cope with what suffering
remains.....The average Indian villager knows suffering well, expects
it, and accepts it as an unavoidable challenge of life. In a remarkable
way the people of India have learned to control pain at the level of
the mind and spirit, and have developed endurance that we in the West
find hard to understand. Westerners, in contrast, tend to view
suffering as an injustice or failure, an infringement on their
guaranteed right to happiness.”
Dr. Brand probes the mystery of pain and reveals its importance. As an
indicator that lets us know something is wrong, pain has a value that
becomes clearest in its absence. The Gift of Pain (1997) looks at what
pain is and why we need it.
In the 1998 film “Patch Adams,” Robin Williams is cast as a doctor who
thinks play is part of healing. The movie is based on a real human.
Adams runs the Gesundheit Institute and the School for Designing a
Society, organizations that focus on making the world more playful and
loving. “We are a model of holistic medical care based on the belief
that the health of the individual cannot be separated from the health
of the family, the community, the society and the world.” Formed in
2006, Gesundheit Global Outreach encompasses clowning missions,
humanitarian aid, building projects and community development around
the world.
A National Bureau of Economic Research paper (www.nber.org) featured a
question from a 2011 survey that asked people across 30 countries the
following: During the past four weeks, how often have you had bodily
aches or pains? Never; seldom; sometimes; often; or very often? About a
third of Americans said they feel aches and pains “very often” or
“often”—more than people in any other country, according to a 2017
article in The Atlantic.
Data from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey, published in The
Journal of Pain, found that most American adults have experienced some
level of pain, from brief to more lasting pain, and from relatively
minor to more severe pain. It found that an estimated 25.3 million
adults had pain every day for the preceding 3 months. Nearly 40 million
adults experience severe levels of pain. Visit www.nih.gov.
Mel Pohl M.D., author of A Day Without Pain,surmises “that all pain is
real, and that emotions drive the experience of pain.” He addresses
treating chronic pain without opioids or other prescription
painkillers. The focus is on a holistic approach to living with chronic
pain. Read his 2013 article at the Psychology Todaywebsite.
Since adolescence, I had suffered with monthly excruciating pain. Being
from a family of pioneer women, I was taught to disregard pain and go
off to school or work. During young adulthood, I had declined addictive
painkillers from several physicians who could not find the source of my
pain. During later adulthood, endometriosis was finally diagnosed.
“Menopause is around the corner,” said the surgeon. But the increasing
monthly pain, being unbearable in my opinion, could not wait any
longer. A hysterectomy was performed.
However, when my tonsils were surgically removed as an adult due to a
history of chronic strep throat, I pushed the hospital morphine pain
pump attached to my arm quite often. Refusing crackers, I whined for
gelatin.
Do westerners overact to pain and suffering? Do we search for miracle
elixirs instead of learning to tolerance degrees of pain? How intense
does pain have to be before we take prescribed medications or sign up
for surgeries? And when is chronic pain chronic? When do we take
opioids short-term or long-term? When do we seek alternative methods?
How did our ancestors tolerate pain?
The debate over addictive pain medication is a dominant topic in our
current medical society and for those with acute or chronic pain.
Readers, what say you?
Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist. She lives in Southern Ohio.
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