Fifty Shades of Pain

[Amanda Sandoval]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9514405/Fifty-shades-of-pain.html

Main Idea: Researchers have begun to develop techniques that may
enable doctors to assess the pain their patients feel
Main Idea in my own words: researchers have found a way to be able to
tell what their patients are feeling, pain-level wise.

I do not agree with the author on this. I don't believe there is any
way that another human being could possibly know how another human
being is feeling. There is empathy, but that's about it. Unless you
are that person in pain, there is never 100% way to know exactly how
high on the scale their pain actually is. They want this so they can
compare pain levels of men and women, "the two incommensurable scales
of unpleasant sensation currently employed by the two sexes." as they
refer to it. There will never be a way to know which is more painful,
giving birth or getting kicked in the genital area. While i think it
might be a cool and interesting thing to see if it ever pans out, I'm
not confident that it will. I believe they will have to set up wires
that connect to our nerves and brain and many tests will have to be
done before they could say that it worked. And would it even be worth
it? I mean just because we know how much pain somebody is literally
in, doesn't mean a doctor can make it go away. While yes they might be
able to tell where the pain is actually coming from and address it
that way, nobody can ever take somebodies pain 100% away. I assume
they are only talking about medical physical pain, because this would
be useless if it were trying to pinpoint emotional pain. That is just
getting ridiculous. Doctors will have so much more access and
information on out bodies than they already do. If i have a problem, i
tell my mum and most of the time she can fix the pain. If not, i go to
the doctor and they usually can solve the problem, without reading my
pain scale level. By adding this technique, it will cause medical
bills to fly even more through the roof than they already are. And
what about those people who cant afford all the medical attention they
need? It will only hurt them in the end. I feel that by using this
technique, it would take away from the personal side of it. If i were
to be hooked up to a machine and then told the doctor what i was
feeling and he told me he actually knew exactly how i felt, it would
almost eliminate me from being needed, other than my physical body.
It;s just another way to detach us from the world. However i do see
where it might come in handy, maybe for somebody who couldn't speak
for themselves or for cancer patients maybe. But i still do not agree.