shut down pain, induced or natural?

cos you're semi dead...

I think it works a little like this: Physical pain is not felt on your skin or in your inyards, pain is an interpretation of signals your nerves send to it from the skin and inyards.

The brain does all the work of putting the signals together to make it feel like pain. (Works the same with physical pleasure too. And senses, like tasting, hearing, seeing, heat, cold, etc.)

When the person with a brain inside is asleep, the brain shuts down largely. It only keeps essential functions going on, and it shuts down non-essential stimulus or signs from your senses. It is like your computer when you put it in sleep mode. (Am I too condescending? Please let me know. I used to be a teacher and I love explaining things with similes, but people take this largely as insults.) Your computer does no computation, but it keeps enough alertness to see if you press a key, or move your mouse, then it wakes up. (On Vista. On Windows XP you had to press the power button. It's like kicking someone out of bed, opposed to whispering or tickling him.)

Pain, regular pain, is no reason to wake up for. But if someone kicks you, you wake up, because it's better for you to see why and by whom you're assaulted. It could be your partner turning in bed, but it could be a tiger ready to devour your partner. It's good to know, at any rate. Not only good to know, but it's essential to know.

However, if you manage to go to sleep with a tooth-ache, then you won't wake up to it unless it gets worse. Like a horse kicked you in the mouth when you turn your had so you are sleeping on it.

I don't know. Does this make sense?

Yes, makes alot of sense. I guess I couldn't figure it out but wondered why, why wouldn't pain keep you awake? Now I have a better grasp. So pain medication doesn't actually stop the pain, but keeps/blocks it from entering that part of the brain that yells ouch?
so what are headaches?
Esp. one sided? Oh shoot, maybe I should go look this stuff up myself, instead of posting...just food for thought.

I've been like that and wide awake.

pretty much how I live my life

The pain medication does exactly what you say it does: it counteracts the signals that the brain would otherwise interpret as "pain". If a signal has pain written all over it, the pain medication blots it out with dark markers, or with correcto-liquid of the appropriate colour.

Headaches are not brain-aches... headaches come from parts of the head that are inside the skull, but outside the brain. There is a sac that everybody has one of to keep their brains in, and there is a liquidous--elastic stuff, very similar to gel or fresh snut, that keeps the brain from rattling around people's skulls. The brain is inside the sack, and the snotty stuff keeps it suspended. It's the snot and/or the sack that hurt(s) when you have a headache. Sometimes the bone of your skull, too.

Please keep an eye out for your next headache and notice that the pain of any headache is always just under your skull, it never comes from the deep, dark, recesses of your brain.

semi dead and in pain....

bummer man

Slower breathing helps "turn-off" and minimize pain as well. Thats why biofeedback, and meditation are good as well. You can more consciously breathe through and control a lot of it.

Cayenne pepper overstimulates the nerves and synapses, and your brain shuts down the signals as well.

What I picked up from issues with my back and discs, and the doctor they sent me to.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please fasten your seat belts, there is a turbulence of a humourless joke ahead of us.

Ahem. They (your back and disks) sent you to a doctor. You picked up some things off of the children of some people, using only your back and some DVD disks. After that you proceeded to pick up the doctor they sent you to.

That was quite some day, chock full of accomplishments, warn't it.

It does it by making us unaware of the passage of time or anything else for several hours - in some cases, even days ... it's like a big ol' light switch in the brain ...

Ladylid, I can't copy photos, but I am looking at your present profile picture, in which you show us your beautiful stand-up erect figure, arms stretched to the Sky and the Sun, and your wriggly little bum entertaining the viewer. The sun's rays hit it just so. Who said that "you think the Sun shone on your arse, huh, son?" In your case you can laugh in the face of that person, and say with complete assurance, "yes, hon', go look for yourself."

Actually they do....especially if there are blockages, arterial disturbance, electrical disturbance or foreign matter...ie a tumour...

...and the 'sack' as you call it, is called the 'Meninge'...as in meningacoccal...meningitis...etc etc...and brain fluid is the shock absorber...the 'buffer' for a soft organ against a hard bone casing.



As to the OP....severe acute pain is not blocked by sleep...although it is with unconsciousness...

....it doesn't go away, simply the pain receptors are incapable of alerting the endocrine system to react...ie adrenaline,endorphins fluid to buffer the painful site/injury,etc...as they have been disrupted in their electrical impulses.

I am going to go out on a limb, but I bet that 1. Blockages, 2. Arterial and electrical disturbances, 3. Foreign matter or tumours, and 4. Blood do not cause brain aches. They do coincide with headaches, and cause headaches, when the tumour, flooding blood, is big enough to exert pressure on the meninge.

Case in point: no anesthetics are required in brain surgery, after the skull has been opened and properly dusted and shined, and Thomas Bradley, the man who had a bullet travel in then around in his brain, when he through himself between a bullet and Ronald Reagan, never complained of pain.

Like the brain, the inside of blood vessels are also incapable of experiencing pain. During an angioplasty the only time that sedation or pain killing is needed is when the pain in the entrance opening for the catheter is bothering the patient.

Hence, blockages never cause pain directly. It's their effects that do. In heart attacks, it's the dying heart tissue that gives pain, and in chest pains before the heart attack, the pain comes from spasming muscles that fight to work with a below-regulation supply of oxygen.

I think the technical term for this event is called unconsciousness.

For more information see the Star Trek episode "Spocks Brain"

sleep causes reruns of favorite porn scenes to run through the mind thereby inducing endorphins and pants tightening until the pain is counterbalanced by internal pressure. kind of like in the gulf oil spill sewage plumber fix.