I thought I'd start off with that powerful quote by Murakami. Although it might seem irrelevant to the topic I will address, I thought it was a good opening statement. Pain for humans can be experienced physically, psychologically or emotionally. And pain is not a good sensation. It hurts, no matter where we experience it. But it is a necessary fact we have to accept in life.
Despite the unpleasant feeling it gives, pain is actually a natural response our body makes for survival. Pain, as humans experience it, hurts but biologically our body is repairing itself or working its defense system for the "harmful" stimuli that it encountered. Fortunately, there are ways to relieve pain for the human experiencing the side effects of this physiological response. For example, if we happen to have a burn on our hand, we can rub it repeatedly, so the intensity of the pain will diminish. It's as if by rubbing, we're numbing the feeling of the pain. If we're experiencing a headache or a muscle ache, we can ingest over the counter medications like Tylenol to relieve the pain. Also think of the "fever". That feverish feeling that we call as "being sick" is actually our body's immune system attacking the virus that invaded our body cells, to help us survive. Humans just interpret it differently than our physiological system. It's pretty neat stuff.
For this particular blog, I will illustrate the use of Over-the-Counter Pain Medications and its uses for both physical and emotional pain.
Those are the generic names for the many brands available for over the counter pain relief medications (aka analgesics). And if you recall from our readings, acetaminophen (Tylenol) have actually been linked, in addition to physical pain relief properties, to relieving "hurt feelings" as well. Acetaminophen, as depicted in the illustration above, is best for headaches and toothaches. However, it has also been found in the brain to diminish responses in the cingulate cortex (responsible for emotional pain). Interestingly, researchers found used in this study, subjects taking acetaminophen progressively show less frequency in hurt feelings!
I know there are much more complex and intricate explanations out there about the mechanisms and pathways of drug interaction in the human body system, but this is what I found interesting. I find it interesting how our bodies react pain and how we as humans interpret this biological mechanism. Everything that we experience can have a biological explanation. Of course I will sound biased because I am getting my inspiration from our biological physiology book, but this is one explanation that is scientific and factual, free of ambiguity.
There are different types of pain people go through throughout their lifetime. Whether it is social, physical pain cannot be prevented. Pain medications that we take are a life saver. If for example if we have a major headache, it can be relieved instantly. Even social pain that I discussed in my blog, also is relieved with medication such as Tylenol.
ReplyDeleteI found the second picture that you posted highly fascinating! I now know why some of the medication I have been taking never really works!! Haha... One would think that one particular type of medication would help in evveerryything but it actually doesn't. I guess, somewhere along the way we forget that these types of medication are good for specific ailments and not for everything. By the way, the part on the Tylenol... was Highly interesting!! Pretty cool info!
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