Pain is a sensation. The place where sensations are located is the soul. The soul is connected with the body and in it a unity with it.
The physical organs for the perception of pain are the nerves. Everywhere in the body there are nerves, everywhere where there are nerves, pain can be perceived: Exceptions are enamel, nails and hair.
The surroundings of the nerve can irritate it or the nerve itself can be the diseased area. The pain is reflected in the corresponding part of the brain. All nerves are connected to the brain. If a nerve is severed, the brain can no longer perceive the part of the brain that is remote from it and severed.
How does phantom pain work? An amputated foot, even though it is no longer there, hurts like hell. This pain comes from the interaction of the severed nerve, which still contains the fibres that once supplied the foot, albeit only as a cross-section, with the centres in the brain.
What effect does the influence of the soul, the spirit have on the development of pain and the perception of pain? Here are two examples: An Indian knows no pain – through mental training, meditation, the Indians have practiced not to perceive at all the pain that could have been caused by the injuries at the stake (trance? self hypnosis?).
A doctor – I read in Sauerbruch or Schleich – involved a patient in an exciting conversation who had to amputate his arm – there were no anaesthesia or painkillers available. He was to tell him about the course of the battle, during which his arm was torn to shreds.
The physician was able to amputate the arm without the patient complaining of pain due to the combination of intense experience and shock effects.
If the organ basis for pain perception in the brain is destroyed, pain can no longer be perceived at all. This is illustrated by an example of a patient who could no longer experience pain as a result of such an injury and became depressed as a result.
The experiences of the soul are based on organs that mediate the experience. Mediators are organic processes, biochemistry, pathophysiology. Influences on pain are therefore possible by influencing the principles of pain development.
Influences on the soul, the spirit itself are possible through conversation, concentration, distraction, meditation, autosuggestion, hypnosis. The influence on the organs on which the soul rests can be taken with antidepressants, morphine and the like; both groups of substances have an effect on the brain. This is also possible with training: the organism has its own morphine-like substances, which it can form and release. This can be trained, see above (Indians, arm amputees).
Theoretically one could destroy the pain centre in the brain. However, people who have had an accident or something similar become depressed because they lack something decisive in their quality of life. From this one can deduce that we need pain for personality development.
The conduction of pain from the point of origin to the point of perception can be influenced or
(chemical, local anesthesia = local anesthesia, surgical: the nerve is cut through, thermocoagulation: the nerve is destroyed by heat, laser cooking and more). Reversible methods (rebuilding methods where the effect is only temporary, such as taking medication or local anaesthesia with a syringe) are opposed to irreversible methods (methods that irretrievably destroy structures of the human body). Another example: paraplegics have no perception of pain in the paralyzed body part.
The processes responsible for triggering pain in the tissue around the nerve can be normalised using various methods, such as manual (Manus, Latin: The hand, manual: With the hands), physical (heat, cold, electricity, radioactivity, X-rays, ultrasound, shock waves, various frequencies: high frequencies and many others) or medicinal measures.
Example: In case of acute blood fullness after bruises or insect bites, cooling is used. Warmth is recommended for cramped muscles, which cause pain due to their hardening. Decongestant drugs also reduce the pressure on the nerves through anti-inflammatory decongestant processes (cortisone as the strongest drug, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs = NSAIDs, known substances: aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen, meloxicam).
Let us turn to a classification of pain therapies:
The abundance of the individual methods is so enormous that the summary in generic terms must suffice. So we have a mental framework into which we can classify any method, so to speak our navigation system:
The following methods are sorted according to their means of work:
Mechanical including incision: destruction of pain-conducting structures, also thermocoagulation, removal of pain-triggering periphery (operation, example abscess)
Chemical: Eating, injections, suppositories of effective drugs (in this type of pain therapy it is no longer crucial where it blocks the pain)
Everything that is chemical, i.e. produced as an artificial substance in the laboratory, has a model in nature. Substances that come from nature can be used as concentrates: If they are herbal, they are called phytotherapy (these include pills, tea, eating natural substances, biting a carnation for toothache, wrapping an onion for middle ear infection). Internal or external applications (compresses and pads) are possible. Homeopathy pursues a special preparation of substances from nature.
Physical therapy: this is where orthodox medicine and complementary medicine overlap: X-ray stimulus radiosynoviorthesis (introduction of radioactive substances into a joint), from heat to cold, all possible forms of applications of electrical apparatus, from microcurrent to high voltage, ultrasound, tweeter, shock wave; ultimately mechanical, electrical, ionising and thermal. Light or pneumatic procedures, up to climate therapy, as far as climate is counted as physics.
Regulative therapies such as acupuncture, overlapping with the following two points.
Manual therapies such as acupressure, osteopathy and chiropractic.
Hypnosis, autosuggestion, biofeedback, all psycho-therapeutic procedures that treat pain