Pain: The Science of Suffering

This is a response to Pain: The Science of Suffering by Patrick Wall. Overall I like the book, it had more interesting concepts and new approaches to others than boring rehashing of common concepts and occasional medical blather. There were a few instances where he mentioned a few things and didn't mention them again, such as physical pain versus mental or emotional pain.I was curious to see how he would tackle such an issue with a medical background but he didn't really. He mentioned the mental and emotional outcomes of pain but not the type of pain caused by strictly mental or emotional means.
The medical side of pain is something I know all too well. Two of my siblings were born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta or O.I. and I was shuffled in and out of hospitals along with them, be it simply because my mother couldn't do anything else with me and my other siblings or because they were debating a bone marrow transplant and I was to be the donor. My sister was born with it and died at the age of two while my brother just recently turned thirteen. She was unlucky enough to be born at a time when it was still new and not well understood while he has benefited from the vast improvements in treatment and general knowledge about it.
It is usually summarized as "brittle bones disease" and depending of the type the person can break bones, generally arms and legs, constantly from birth unto adulthood. being around that type of medical environment as well as recently volunteering at hospitals I consider myself fairly well versed in that aspect of pain but this book shed more light on the actual biology of it. The way he talks about pain and the different parts, i.e. the whole mechanical concept with stimulus and response, was fascinating. Certain chapters such as "your pain", "other people's pain", "pain with obvious causes", "a 'normal' pain response", and "private pain and public display" were familiar to me while still offering some interesting insight. The most interesting chapters were probably "The philosophy of pain", "the body detects, the brain reacts", "pain without a cause, and "the placebo response".
The philosophy of pain reminded me of some things I've have read on philosophers such as Descartes, dualism, and the differing opinions on how the mind works especially with the body. It really makes you think how we have changed our opinions about so many things throughout history and then always claim we have the right idea but to this day no one can say for certain how the brain really works in total. The body detects and the brain reacts did away with what he calls the common myth of how pain works that I had originally held. The thing that stuck out the most (I'm not completely sure if it was in this chapter but I think it was) was the distinct types of stimulus cold, heat, pressure, and chemical. It was interesting to think that all stimuli fall into those categories.
Pain without a cause was enlightening because it showed that not only do lesser known ailments such as Trigeminal Neuralgia, Fibromyalgia, or myofascial pain syndrome have no known cause but also common things such as headaches, backaches, and repetitive stress injury. I was also surprised to learn the origin of the word migraine from the French demi-craine, meaning "half the head". I always like to learn origins of commonplace words or sayings. The Placebo response was something I had heard of and knew the gist of but I had no idea how powerful the mind really was in terms of controlling the body. I knew that the idea of getting better and the assumption that something will make you better can in and of itself make you better but I didn't realize the extent to which it can. I think Marcus Aurelius said it very well if not best, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."