Joe Rutledge’s Weblog

Thinking outside the box February 2, 2008

Last week I talked about the type of pain that an athlete feels when they push themselves to the extremes of their physical ability. Sometimes this includes broken bones or cuts or bruises, but most of these things can have a physical source that can be seen and identified by a doctor. In traditional medical fashion,
a doctor is likely to prescribe painkilling drugs or antiinflamatories, or in the worst cases perform surgery. When the source of the pain is fixed, the pain typically subsides.

At least, that is the way that is suppose to work. I have been doing a little bit of research and have found something very interesting. Some doctors are realizing that not all pain can be treated in such a “by the book” kind of way. Chronic pain, such as back pain, experienced by a majority of Americans at some point in their life, has traditionally been dealt with in the same way as every other type of pain. The doctor looks for any physical source that may be the cause of the ongoing pain, such as a herniated disk or a crack in the bone, and then the proceed with surgery or prescription medication to fix the pain. Recently however, researchers are showing that chronic pain may need to be attacked at a different angle.

The pain that is caused by chronic pain may have been initiated by a external cause, but the pain becomes internalized in our brains. The more we think about it the more it hurts. It is a downward cycle, and a very slippery slope that no surgery or physical therapy can resolve. The breakthrough came when people with lesions in certain parts of their brain could feel pain, but it did not bother them. The emotional part of the pain was gone, so that they knew it was there, but just did not care. It made doctors think that they could fix all chronic pain by starting with the brain.

The new studies show that most people with chronic pain also suffer from depression or are living stressful lives. These two things very closely resemble the cycle of chronic pain in which a small snowball rolling down a hill gains momentum and size until it controls a person’s life. So, how should we treat chronic pain? Behaviorial therapy might be the best answer. By getting people to think about their pain in different ways has actually been shown to reduce the pain. Just talking about their pain with someone also seems to help reduce the severity.

I intend on being a doctor some day, but that does not mean that I am in favor of medicine or surgery. I think that they should be a last resort, as both have side effects and risks that can many times be avoided. Knowing that chronic pain sufferers might be able to avoid surgery and medicine is just more proof that doctors have to stop thinking with one track minds. Not everything painful has a simple solution that will show itself in an x-ray. The sooner we realize this the better.

No Pain No Gain January 26, 2008

The greatest athletes in the world today have reached levels of strength, speed, size, and coordination that might seem inhuman to our ancestors. While the extra athleticism might be a product of new training techniques or increased nutritional awareness, these men and women, as well as those before them, all share one thing in common. They are not strangers to pain. If anyone wants to excel in athletics, they will have to push their limits.
Runners endure burning lungs and aching feet, as they gasp for air and pound out mile after mile. Swimmers arms seem to be screaming at them to stop, and they must learn to ignore them and swim harder and faster. A football running back gets hit over…and over…and over again, and each time he has to shrug it off and run back to prepare for the next play.
Although perhaps not the most common athlete in America, I think that the martial artist is the ideal example of a person overcoming pain for his or her sport. Obviously taking punches and kicks to the head and gut is going to hurt…a lot. It takes a long time to become accustomed to getting hit, and it will never stop hurting, but martial artists are able to increase their tolerance for pain. They train their body and their minds to alter their threshold for pain. Therein lies the key to true athleticism. It takes more than an athletic body to be the best. The greatest have the drive to overcome the pain and achieve the highest levels in their sports.

My first Post January 19, 2008

There is a reason that hundreds of millions of years of evolution provided us with five senses. Our senses provide us with unique inputs from our environment and compliment each other in a way that makes it hard to imagine what it would be like living without any one of them. And although it would seem almost unbearable to live without two or more of our senses, it has been done. Living with just one of our sense, though, might not even seem like a life worth living. So I wont say which sense I would chose if I could only have one, but I will say which I believe is the most important.
Our sense of touch is the one, and only, of our senses that we could literally not live without, and it is therefore the most important. Don’t get me wrong, its not that I don’t think that taste and smell aren’t helpful and enjoyable in their own rights, but I am going to dismiss them for the time being. They are unnecessary for maintaining life for many of the reasons that my classmates have already discussed. Sight and sound are also wonderful senses, and I cringe at the thought of ever losing either one. However, many people do live without these senses. It is definitely unfortunate and it might be considered a disability, but many times they are able to live healthy and happy lives.
Now consider just how many people you know that have lost their sense of touch. If you are like most people, then you don’t know anyone. Consider an example of a person who no longer posses their sense of touch. While most people sleep at night, they constantly adjust their position to accommodate any sense of pain that might arise from limbs, muscles, or bones that are out of place. If you rolled on your side and couldn’t feel a rib slightly poking in the wrong direction, you might do nothing about it, until perhaps you wake up with a fatal wound and a punctured lung. I know it is a grisly example, and it may seem somewhat extreme, but it proves how important touch is.
This whole entry talks about how important the darker side of touch is to our livelihood. By the darker side I mean the pain, hot, or cold that we feel that allows us avoid danger. It is the one sense that we can truly not live without.

Hello world! January 9, 2008

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