The Pain Enigma: The more scientists learn, the more mysterious it becomes

A friend of mine’s dad was published in the National Post this weekend… gives a whole new perspective to pain.

“Ken Prkachin, a psychologist at the University of Northern British Columbia, knows what pain looks like. His research shows that the facial reaction to pain involves four distinct muscular actions. The eyebrows lower and are drawn in; the muscles around the eye contract, narrowing the eye and producing crow’s feet; the muscles in mid-face contract, wrinkling the nose and raising the upper lip; and the eyes often just close.

There are other reactions, such as stretching the lips into a wince, he said, but this appears to be only reliably associated with extreme pain, such as that suffered by soldiers in battle. Even without this detail, he assumed other people knew what pain looked like too, so he was surprised to discover a constant tendency to underestimate. His test subjects watched video of people in pain, taken at a sports medicine clinic, and consistently pegged it much lower on a number scale than the actual sufferer did.

What he found most “disturbing,” though, was that this effect was stronger in health care workers, suggesting that exposure to pain can dull sympathy. In fact, according to research he is presenting at the 13th World Congress on Pain, which starts today in Montreal, this underestimation can be experimentally induced and strengthened, just by priming people with a few pictures of others in pain.”


Then there was this little tid-bit:

“I’m more sure than ever that male and females have different pathways to pain,” he said. “One day there will be sex-specific drugs.”

Fascinating.

I’ve been injured pretty badly in a couple gnarly accidents. I’ve been taken into the ambulance by the paramedic and told, no joke, to “suck it up.” I mean my shoulder was dislocated, and the ligaments were torn, and I had gravel rash all across my cheek, arm, hip and leg. I wasn’t even crying. I just asked her not to touch me. B*tch.

I shouldn’t say that… she’s a lovely lady. But f*ck I was mad at her. Don’t tell me what hurts, and what doesn’t hurt.

Now reading this article I realize her reaction to me may have been skewed by the fact that she picked me up 10 minutes after finishing up driving the victims of a four car pile-up, all with critical injuries, to the hospital. Her perspective put me into that context…. “whiny little b*tch… she doesn’t even know the half of it….pain… she doesn’t know pain…”

Yeah Ok… I’ll give you that one Ms. Unfriendly Paramedic Lady.... I'll give you that one.