Stubbing your toe is the unadulterated example of disproportionatepain . As your pinky collides with the unforgiving corner of your coffee bean table , it can feel as if your phalanx has just erupted through the cutis of your toe , and yet five minutes subsequently it ’s basically fine . give the intensity of feeling from such a minor ailment , it got us inquire : can pain kill you ?
What is pain?
Humans are highly sensible due to a complex web of spunk that operate throughout our total physical structure ( thefirst - ever complete dissection of the human anxious systemdemonstrates how extensive it is ) . jam full ofdanger - detect nociceptors , our nerves can pick up on changes in temperature , chemical substance rest , or imperativeness , but the pain is n’t matt-up by those nerves , because pain is sensed by the brain .
When you stub your toe the pain in the neck is n’t really in your toe . painfulness is the result of the brain evaluating information , combining sensory information with arithmetic mean based on previous exposure to pain .
This means that when thebrainproduces hurt , it select a location based on a “ best guess scenario ” . Usually , the brain gets it correct , but sometimes it does n’t , as in the case of bear on pain that can tell you the ouchie is in your shoulder when actually it ’s get by something that ’s extend faulty in the abdomen , for lesson .
So , if pain is essentially the version of selective information by the brain …
Can pain kill you?
Pain itself ca n’t kill you , but its physiological essence can , and it will come as no surprise that it ’s one of the louder symptom of a cooking stove of potentially mortal malady and injuries . Viruses are one example here .
“ When you catch a virus , your immune system of rules reacts to protect your consistence . It induct inflammation – and pain is one of the cardinal preindication of this inflammation,”Dr Franziska Denk , a older lecturer at Kings College London who focuses on pain in the ass research , toldIFLScience .
“ Pain is have by nerves in your body sensing that your immune jail cell are active and thus that your body is under attack . The boldness respond by sending signal to your brain to encourage you to rest and not move about too much until the immune system has done its business and the inflammation has resolved . ”
Aside from the underlie illnesses or injuries that have grievous discomfort , pain can also contribute to a person ’s danger of destruction because of the stress it commit on the body .
What pain does to the body
“ Severe pain is a horrendous stress , ” wrote Forest Tennant inPractice Pain Management . “ Severe nuisance flares , acute or chronic , cause the hypothalamic - pituitary - adrenal axis to grow glucocorticoids ( cortisol , pregnenolone ) and catecholamine ( adrenalin and noradrenalin ) in an effort to biologically hold the stress . Catecholamines have a unmediated , potent stimulation effect on the cardiovascular system and severe tachycardia and high blood pressure solution . ”
Pain flares like this can push a mortal ’s fondness pace up to over 100 beats a second and cause dangerously high blood air pressure , which is especially annihilating in affected role with existing health issues , and it can be agitate even high by another side upshot of extreme pain .
“ In addition to adrenal catecholamine release , pain in the ass flares cause overactivity of the autonomic , charitable nervous system , which add extra input to catecholamine - induced tachycardia and high blood pressure , ” Tennant continued . “ The combined physiologic burden of excessive catecholamine release and autonomic , sympathetic discharge may put such strain on the spunk to make coronary spasm , cardiac arrhythmia , and sudden end . ”
So , whilepainitself is n’t a direct cause of death , it can have a pregnant influence on a affected role ’s outcome if it is n’t managed decently . fortuitously , the subject field ofanesthesiameans we can obstruct even extreme pain , allowing surgeons to cut down masses open without them having to feel a thing .
But as far as stub your toe in the rain shower go ? You ’re break to have to brave that by yourself .
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