Pain

I live with it, i'm not fond of it, and i avoid it if possible. I resign myself to it, when it cannot be avoided.

"How ought pain be treated?" seems a bit to vague to me. Do you mean pharmacologically? NOt sue what you are getting at with that one.

ClaudioDeRoxor- Welcome to A2K!

That is a very interesting question that you have presented. But I would like a little clarification. Are you speaking of physical or psychological pain? Is the pain something that is a minor annoyance, or something that invades your entire life?

i find that, with some bit of flexing or exercise, the endorphins kick in and help the pain.
I have a chronic neck pain from an old chopper crash that asserts itself in certain weather fronts, like today. I make sure tha I get a long walk in sometime during the day and this quiets it down nicely . I dont even need to take an advil.

they say that pain diminishes or increases wrt to ones submission to it. PAin from an illness , like cancer, i dont think fits in this self maintenance scheme. In those cases , I suppose only chemistry can help.

I guess i should clarify. I mean psychological pain, and i don't mean treatment as drugs. I mean how ought a person percieve pain? And based on this perception how ought one deal with it?

Psychological pain usually points to worries or issues of some sort, and then only thing that fixes that is working those out. Like physical pain, it's a good thing, because without it, we'd never know anything was wrong.

yes, clarity in questions is good.

I suppose my initial response, which refers to my arthritis, is in line with FM's description of "self-management" of the effects of pain. Additionally, i don't medicate for it now, because i have every reason to believe that it will get worse when i enter my sixties, and want the medication to be more effective at that time.

For "psychological pain," i would say much the same. I am a depressive (bi-polar disorder is so much meaningless jargon to me, and i don't care to be under a clinical microscope, so i don't use the term, and have gotten all the good i can expect from counselling), and will not medicate for that either, which i consider a quick ride to dependency on the drug, which would make life unreal. I was a sufficiently bad boy in youth to have a wide experience of different types of drugs, both illegal, and legal drugs abused illegally--so i want no part of solving this life-long malady with pharmacology. I endure. It helps that maturity leads us to recognize our faults (if ego does not interfere), and the ways in which we make our own lives unnecessarily difficult. There are types of psychological pain, such as cruelty from family or friends or loved-ones, which must simply be endured. It cannot be anticipated (except with family: a grown man or woman should know if their family members are cruel, and get what they deserve if their friends are habitually abusive), so one must simply deal with it. Angst is a pain usually associated with adolescents, but it can be a life-long experience. Saying that one makes one's own problems is not helpful--one still feels the pain, and must find ways to deal with it.

Psychological pain can be a learning mechanism.
Sometimes you feel pain because someone has hurt you emotionally, so you dwell on the situation and you work out what went wrong and what not to do next time.

People say that "time is the best healer" and I'd personally disagree with it. It doesn't heal anything it just makes it easier to distract yourself from it.
When I think back to some things they hurt me just as much now as they did then. They don't bother me through the day because I'm not thinking about them as I'm distracted by other things.

Basically I'm thinking about relationships here since I've been fortunate enough not to have experienced pain from my family.

Don't fear pain for we learn from it.
How can someone hide from pain when it is truly there? You may hide and fool others but you'll know in your heart that it is you whom you are fooling. Two things you can do... either you find a way to cure the pain or absorb it. How does one cure the pain then? Strive to be a better person, and try to reach out and help other people who are in pain--in so doing, you cure yours as well.

Feelings ebb. No "pain" remains to be painful forever. It may take for others longer to heal but it does heal and recedes through time. Time may not be the one responsible for the healing but it provides that needed space for reflection, acceptance, and improvement. The pain one may be feeling right now may be so intense but do you really think that it will constantly remain that way? No it will not. In time, if not completey healed, it will recede.

The best thing one can do is to accept the pain, learn from it, try to be a better person, be positive, laugh at your problems, and reach out. :-)

I live with it. I'm walking on a semi-sprained ankle. Turned it last night coming home. Stepped on a pine cone in the grass. . .

cartilage damage to both knees, plus I damaged one hip pretty good. I can tell when the pressure changes.

Ingrown toenails. . .usually I just keep them short, and that doesn't hurt, but I've decided to let them push through. One went pretty easy, another is being difficult. Doesn't hurt much, now, but it will soon.

I get migraine intense headaches, mostly due to caffeine withdrawl. I say migraine intense, and not migraine, as I've had a migraine, and while it hurt like hell, my 'normal' headaches are just as intense, without me being sick.

Oh, and I had nerve pain with a tooth once. . . not fun.

Yes, it hurts, and yes I try and combat it with mass ingestion of modern pharmecudicals, but I can tolerate pain. Guess I just learned how. My sister likes to say that we have a high pain threshold. That may be true, but I'd just as soon be pain free.