Mastodawn

Have you ever been in pain in such a way that when the pain stops the feeling of the pain being gone is almost as intense as the pain itself?

I've had this with a few things, mostly migraines, tooth aches, and one time what may have been a pinched nerve.

Maybe it's because the thing that scares me the most about pain, isn't the pain itself, which I can tolerate, I'm tough, I like to think. But, the thought of not being able to escape pain scares me.

What happens to the body when pain stops?

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Erin Jonaitis 1d ago

@futurebird I'd imagine a sensory afterimage of the sort you get if you stare at something red unblinking for a minute and then look at a white wall; or do that trick where you press your arms against a doorframe for a minute and then stop. Perhaps pain-sensing neurons do something similar.

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myrmepropagandist 1d ago

@emjonaitis

The mind and body must be doing things to compensate for extreme pain, and maybe for a bit you still have all of that going on, but the signal is gone.

Sometimes when I take an advil for a minor migraine and it goes away I feel a little light-headed because the pain is gone. And I think it's because I'm alway worried that a regular migraine might turn into one of the evil ones. The "real" migraines.

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Erin Jonaitis

@futurebird I used to get cramps bad enough to get sent home from school. I'd take Advil and a nap and when I'd wake up, I'd have this floaty feeling. Physically not unlike the arms-in-the-doorframe trick, really.