The Fascinating Science of Pain – and Why Everyone Feels it Differently
jelizondo writes:
The Guardian has a long and very interesting article about pain and its psychology and physiology. Some gripping anecdotes like the soldier who picks his torn arm from the ground and walks to receive medical attention or the woman who worked and walked around for 10 hours with a burst cyst and a "a belly full of blood."
Why some people can withstand high pain while others cry over a little knock in their knee?
Some say it was John Sattler's own fault. The lead-up to the 1970 rugby league grand final had been tense; the team he led, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, had lost the 1969 final. Here was an opportunity for redemption. The Rabbitohs were not about to let glory slip through their fingers again.
Soon after the starting whistle, Sattler went in for a tackle. As he untangled - in a move not uncommon in the sport at the time - he gave the Manly Sea Eagles' John Bucknall a clip on the ear.
Seconds later - just three minutes into the game - the towering second rower returned favour with force: Bucknall's mighty right arm bore down on Sattler, breaking his jaw in three places and tearing his skin; he would later need eight stitches. When his teammate Bob McCarthy turned to check on him, he saw his captain spurting blood, his jaw hanging low. Forty years later Sattler would recall that moment. One thought raged in his shattered head: "I have never felt pain like this in my life."
But he played on. Tackling heaving muscular players as they advanced. Being tackled in turn, around the head, as he pushed forward. All the while he could feel his jaw in pieces.
At half-time the Rabbitohs were leading. In the locker room, Sattler warned his teammates, "Don't play me out of this grand final."
McCarthy told him, "Mate, you've got to go off."
He refused. "I'm staying."
Sattler played the whole game. The remaining 77 minutes. At the end, he gave a speech and ran a lap of honour. The Rabbitohs had won. The back page of the next day's Sunday Mirror screamed "BROKEN JAW HERO".
[...]
How can a person bitten by a shark calmly paddle their surfboard to safety, then later liken the sensation of the predator clamping down on their limb to the feeling of someone giving their arm "a shake"? How is it that a woman can have a cyst on her ovary burst, her abdomen steadily fill with blood, but continue working at her desk for six hours? Or that a soldier can have his legs blown off then direct his own emergency treatment? [16:06 and quite moving.]
Each one of us feels pain. We all stub our toes, burn our fingers, knock our knees. And worse. The problem with living in just one mind and body is that we can never know whether our six out of 10 on the pain scale is the same as the patient in the chair next to us.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.