"Chronic pain is rarely accompanied by sympathetic nervous system arousal. Lack of objective signs may prompt the inexperienced clinician to say that the patient does not look like he or she is in pain"

American Pain Society 1999 P.4

 

Pain through the eyes of observers throughout time:

 

"Pain upsets and destroys the nature of the person who feels it"

Aristotle

 

"Perhaps few persons who are not physicians realize the influence of which long-continued and unendurable pain have upon both body and mind"

Weir Mitchell 1864

"Pain is an experience subject to modification by many factors. Wounds received during strenuous physical exercise, during the excitement of games, often go unnoticed. The same is true of wounds received during fighting, during anger. Strong emotion can block pain".

Lt Col. H Beecher 1946

"Pain is a consummate mind-body event where sensation and emotion become inextricably intertwined; it is impossible to say where the realm of physical pain ends and psychic suffering begins".

Fishman, S MD The War on Pain Harper Collins 2000 p. 2

 

"There is no single accepted pain experience--no one feels it the same".

Fishman p. 7

 

"Unrelenting pain can alter the way neurons handle information,it can make sensation more intense, twist its character, create additional sensations like stabbing pain, or set off other neurological events common with stress"....

"Lasting pain can produce a cycle of chemical and electrical action and reaction that becomes an automatic feedback loop--a chronic self-perpetuation hurting that persists long after the original trauma has healed."

"Pain can reconfigure the architecture of the nervous system it invades. It can be stamped so deeply as to make a permanent impression."

p. 85-6 Fishman

 

"The mind-body connection can either magnify or demagnify pain or push it from the center of your consciousness...." We have the ability to transform pain into either less pain or more pain"..."Too much sensation can magnify pain".

Fishman S MD p.10

 

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