Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register
Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

Pain relief

ownerof1000oddsocksownerof1000oddsocks Veteran
edited October 2010 in Buddhism Basics
Right now my insides are not working too well. Extreme cramping and dull aches in my gut awoke me earlier and kept on crashing in waves until finally causing me to vomit. This is certainly quite unpleasant although there is a bizarre euphoria associated with this 'purging', resting in the moment as pain gives way. It feels good not to be in pain.

Dissatisfaction seem to be the order of the day; of course we don't experience boredom, discomfort and frustration as pain. When you are relieved from thirst, hunger, from cold, from boredom, when you reach for a cigarette, pour a whiskey, turn on the television or scoop some ice cream, you achieve satisfaction.

On one end of the spectrum satisfaction is only temporary. The end of pain is a more permanent satisfaction, one that we take for granted, but it's omnipresent and strikes when we least expect it and demands a different sort of attention and is distracting in some way, skewing our perspective, altering our life in sometimes dramatic ways.

Some of you are dealing with pain constantly- if only there was a way to deal with it, and I feel there's a great deal more discipline involved with the dissatisfaction that is inflicted upon us, rather than the ones we inflict upon ourselves.

Pain give us no choice but to be in the present moment, and given the choice I'd much rather not.

Comments

  • SherabDorjeSherabDorje
    edited October 2010
    Mindfulness can help you not resist the pain, which is a major component of "suffering", which is secondary to pain. Opiods such as morphine and codeine do not so much dull pain as make a person not care that it's there. If you can soften and relax and be with the pain and not resist it's not as bad. I often do that with extreme anxiety. It helps.
  • ownerof1000oddsocksownerof1000oddsocks Veteran
    edited October 2010
    That must be a terrible thing SherabDorje.. Would it be fair to say that you get overexcited? Perhaps there are triggers that lead to your anxiety, and safe places that make you feel better.

    Does it involve panic attacks?
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    edited October 2010
    SherabDorje wrote: »
    Opiods such as morphine and codeine do not so much dull pain as make a person not care that it's there.

    Actually that's not quite the case. Opioids occupy the opioid receptors in the brain, thus blocking the brain's ability to receive the painful input from the nervous system. The brain doesn't know there's any painful stimulus.

    Drugs that affect the GABA (gamma amino butyric acid) system such as the benzodiazepines (Valium, Versed, clonazepam, etc) don't do anything for the pain, but they make you not care that it hurts.

    Ask me what I'm studying in pharmacology right at the moment :)

    Mtns
  • SherabDorjeSherabDorje
    edited October 2010
    Oops.
  • CPaulCPaul
    edited October 2010
    @Mountains

    What does Oxycodine fall under? A while back I had to get my ear operated on, and they gave me that. It did nothing to dull the pain, I just stopped caring about it. and it make me incredibly dizzy. I'm not sure how people can get hooked on that stuff, it wasn't an overwhelmingly pleasant feeling!
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    edited October 2010
    Oxycodone is a very powerful opoid. All drugs in that class (opoids) work essentially the same way, by blocking opoid pain receptors in the brain. But every body (and everybody) is different genetically, so some drugs work better for some people than others. And every drug (of every kind) has different side effects. The side effects are pronounced in some people and absent in others, and everything in between. You're lucky the oxy gave you a bad experience - no chance you'll want to get hooked on it. There are a LOT of people hooked on it, especially in my part of the country (we have the highest rate anywhere for some reason). People (really stupid people) even crush the stuff and snort it.

    Oxycodone is a great drug for its intended purpose for most people, but like any drug, shouldn't be abused or misused.
  • upekkaupekka Veteran
    edited October 2010
    ownerof1000oddsocks wrote: »

    Pain give us no choice but to be in the present moment,
    how timely this post is

    at the moment (from yesterday, i have been suffering from chest pain and a pain on the shoulder blade)
    have gone through the ECG, Xray and Drs see nothing wrong with the heart or anything

    Still it hurts

    today my daughter suggests :p 'i might have done wrong in the past, sort of stab someone and have to bear the pain now'

    and i have been listening to a dhamma talk in the morning (with the sever pain) about Five clinging aggregates and which explains the best thing to get rid of suffering (pain) is not to have aggregates

    i found it is a timely dhamma talk because it went through my heart (mind) than before

    if there is not five clinging aggregates there is no pain
    so
    it is advisable to try harder and harder to understand Buddha's Teaching and get rid of all defilements
  • CPaulCPaul
    edited October 2010
    @mountain, thanks for the explanation.

    as for pain, it comes and goes, like everything else. that isn't to say it isn't unbearable when it is happening, but it will always leave.
Sign In or Register to comment.