Perception Of Pain Essay

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The Perception of Pain

At some point in life, all people experience pain. The presence of pain can prevent further damage to an injured area or even prevent an injury from occurring, but pain that continues, after treatment or even after healing, can be debilitating (Loeser and Melzack, 1999).

Stephani Curtis (1997) presents a case study of a 32-year-old woman, Mrs. J, who injured her lower back when she fell off a horse. As a result of this accident, Mrs. J experienced a ruptured lumbar disc. The treatment, a lumbar laminectomy, failed to alleviate her pain. Due to the pain and the effects of her prescribed medication, Mrs. J was forced to curtail her activities, and she had to quit her job as a truck driver. Psychologists, neurosurgeons, …show more content…

Doctors frequently prescribe medication as a part or as the whole of the treatment of pain. They must carefully consider a variety of side effects caused by drugs. For example, when aspirin is taken for a long time, it may counteract the body's natural prostaglandins effect. The patient also increases the possibility of developing a peptic ulcer or gastro-intestinal bleeding. Other dangers exist in pharmaceutical treatment. Some medications are addictive; others may cause dizziness, constipation, or blurred vision. Morphine can cause more pain in some people rather than reducing pain (Pain Drain, …show more content…

Hyperalgesia happens when a patient feels more pain than normal for a painful event. When a patient experiences pain from a stimulus, such as touch, that is normally painless, allodynia occurs (Pain Drain, 1999). Anyone who has ever taken a warm shower when he had a sunburn has a little idea of what allodynia is like. While these effects have been observed in adults and children, a 9-month-old girl with a brain tumor was the first case of hyperalgesia and allodynia due to morphine exposure in a baby. The child was given morphine to reduce the pain she experienced during even routine nursing. The dosage was increased when she continued to cry and to exhibit extreme discomfort during daily care chores. Even feeding caused discomfort to the child. The morphine dosage was reduced when the doctors suspected allodynia and hyperalgesia due to the use of morphine. They changed her medication, and she quickly improved. She remained pain free for the last 17 months of her life (Heger, et. al., 1999; Correction,

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