“Tough as nails” or “mimosa?” People react to pain in highly different ways. How we perceive the body’s warning signal, which informs us of external or internal threats, depends on various circumstances – such as our daily form and the experiences we have had with pain. The choice of anesthesia for dental treatment then also depends on the individual’s perception of pain.
A person’s perception of pain is very individual
Just like hearing or seeing, the sensation of pain is a form of perception. Pain is caused by stimuli such as cold, heat or even an injury or inflammation. Via pain receptors on the nerves and the spinal cord, the information “pain” is transmitted to the brain, to the thalamus. This region then passes the pain on to the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for physical sensation. The reciprocal excitation of different areas of the brain ultimately leads to the person experiencing the pain as unpleasant. Pain is distinguished once according to its place of origin into surface or deep pain and also differentiates between acute and chronic pain, such as that belonging to a rheumatic disease.
Pain perception is learned
The fact that some people are more and some less sensitive to pain has also been confirmed by scientific studies: Certain regions of the brain are active to different degrees, which determines the respective perception. Pain cannot be measured objectively; rather, it depends on the subjective experience of the person affected. Factors such as stress, exhaustion and anxiety can also intensify or even trigger pain. The way in which a person reacts to pain is learned in childhood. Role models and the reaction of parents to childhood pain play a major role in shaping a person’s own perception of pain – throughout his or her life. Thus, some people behave frightened, others angry, still others try to distract themselves. In fact, distraction is a means of influencing pain – and this distraction can be harnessed in dentistry. Patients relax when they listen to music through headphones, lowering their perception of pain. Under hypnosis, pain can even be eliminated altogether.
This is how pain is turned off
The body itself has a pain-inhibiting system. In certain situations, such as accidents, pain is noticed late or not at all. This is due to certain messenger substances that stop the pain response for a time by blocking the transmission of signals. This endogenous “anesthetic” functions as a defense system in acutely threatening situations. In contrast, various methods of anesthesia are used during a medical procedure. For major surgery, general anesthesia ensures that some of the higher brain functions, such as consciousness and pain perception, are overridden. Local anesthesia uses certain injected substances to interrupt the conduction of pain from the nerves to the spinal cord, so the pain does not reach the brain and thus cannot be consciously perceived.
Finding the right time
People do not always feel and sense pain the same way, because the body is subject to certain temporal changes. It is not for nothing that we speak of the “inner clock”, which ticks differently for everyone. Chronobiology studies these individual biological rhythms. It enables statements to be made about the processes in a person’s body – for example, when he or she is particularly resistant or sensitive to pain. Based on these findings, dentists can also plan treatment in advance and find a favorable time for their patients. Source: proDente