Pain - Writers Forum

Creative_Insanity · 07-30-2004, 03:48 PM

Okay, I know there's a part of your brain that registers feeling -- including pain. So is it possible to destroy this part of the brain? I know it is with all our new technology, but would there be a way to do it in, say, the fantasy world that my stories are set in (without killing the patient, of course)? Like, could you take a long needle, poke it in the right place, and destroy feeling? I know nothing medical, so I'm going to need a lot of help on this. The context of the story would be a dying person who is in a lot of pain, and their friends perform this pain-destroying operation on them.

Emma LB · 07-30-2004, 04:09 PM

I know that there are people who are born with a certain genetic defect which causes them to feel no pain, but I don't think that medically what you are suggesting is possible if you don't set this in the future, and certainly not if it's set in the past like most fantasy novels. While brain surgery is not un-heard of in Ancient Egypt they did not actually poke around in the brain, brain surgery was just to try and set a broken skull straight again. If I remember correctly it says in some ancient Egyptian doctor's handbook that if something has actually penetrated the skull and entered the brain that is

Quote:

An ailment not to be treated

, meaning they just can't heal the patient.
If you remove enough of their brain they won't be able to feel any pain, not sure they'll live for long though and this guy is going to die anyway, right?

I'm sure you can just invent some herb that numbs pain, what about say a mixture of herbs that either numb the pain or kill the patient if they aren't mixed up correctly? That way it might still be a bit risky...

Creative_Insanity · 07-30-2004, 04:12 PM

Thanks, yeah, I'll just make up some herb-thing. . . lol although it would have been fun to do it the other way.

Emma LB · 07-30-2004, 05:14 PM

Yes, well you could still let some guy with no knowledge of what the different brain region are for do the job and if you want it to be realistic all you have to do is let the patient die

.

Creative_Insanity · 07-30-2004, 06:40 PM

lol, fun, but see the point was that the patient would die anyways, they were just taking the pain away for whatever time they had left. Seriously, no one would perform a procedure like that if they thought they had a long time to live. . . the quality of living is much decreased when you have no feeling.

Alys R. · 07-31-2004, 02:22 AM

In The Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card, in the 7th book Heartfire I believe, Calvin has Special!powers and he pinches a nerve in Napoleon's leg so that he can feel nothing below his knee.

I don't know if that's helpful, but there's been something similar done

xayaxos · 07-31-2004, 03:49 AM

I was watching a documentary on TV the night before last (I can't remember what it's called) all about the different senses, including touch. Apparently the touch-sense is made up of about five or six different senses, including pain, each of which is transmitted to the brain via different nerves.

So it is theoretically possible to damage on the axon (I think that's the term) which carries the pain information to the to the brain from any particular region of the body. Of course, that would be all the way down to the cellular level and probably not feasible for your story, but I just thought I'd say my piece

Have you tried to Google the query yet?

Deadally · 07-31-2004, 09:11 AM

Man, a brain malfunction would be sooo much more interesting than herbs. Whoever said that the process had to exist? A man undergoes brain surgery to become an ustoppable soldier or the like.

It's believable because we don't exactly KNOW everything that can be done, and this sounds feasible at first thought, you know?

Emma LB · 07-31-2004, 09:48 AM

Well, I think it doesn't sound very realistic although I must agree it sounds more fun that the herb, but I mean it is a fantasy novel so well... you could just make up your own rules I suppose. But to me it would sound unrealistic to have someone remove a bit of brain.

Deadally · 07-31-2004, 10:06 AM

lol, radiation is a catch-all for weirdness, as well

Dragonscales · 08-01-2004, 12:13 PM

I think it is very feasable to be able to block pain by perhaps removing or deadening certain parts of the brain in some way, it mightn't be possible yet, but that's not to say it isn't possible. Look at the effect a labotomy has on a person and all that involves is taking out part of the frontal lobes. However, if you are having trouble with making this idea realistic then why not resort to traditional methods? Namedly alchohol or just plain knocking the person out. The idea of herbs is also not a bad one as there are alot of plants and animals in the world that are able to paralize and/or numb a person. There is also alot of crude ways to make a tranquilizer as well. Best advice I could give is run a few searches on various ideas and study up till you find one which fits the place this is happening in your story as well as something feasable for the people involved to perform.

penny · 08-04-2004, 04:32 PM

Go to google and type in Neuropathy.
I wish there was a way to just go in the brain and shut off pain but from personal experience the best Medicine can do at this time is use pharmaceuticals like morphine and heroin dirivatives. There is a whole science being researched currently on pain. It is only a ghost in a jumble of nerve messages. heat,cold, pressure,balance, body temp regulation (sweating or not) touch,position,muscle pulse, lung and heart workings, gut and organ mechanisms, reflexes on and on. And that is just the sensory system. Around that wraps the autonomic system. Types of pain are registered not only in the brain but along the spinal chord.
Pain itself is a subjective response to injury not the injury itself. A person with a missing limb can still feel pain in the ghost appendage. The pain is most certainly there but where is it, really.Science wants it all to be objective- there is nothing a surgeon would love more than there to be a little lump of tissue that could be removed.
I promised I wouldn't whine I hope this doesn't qualify.
Here is an idea for your story. Have your character go through an operation where there is a secondary spinal chord surgically inserted with a computerized interface to the brain that picks and chooses what the character feels. Could be good could be a disaster?

Dragonscales · 08-09-2004, 05:36 PM

The point though is that while the spinal cord registers the nerve emissions that signal pain, they only send it upwards to the brain for processing. The spine isn't actually the one that sorts the information into hurt, cold, heat, pressure, etc. It just passes the pulses to the brain to sort out what is being felt and how to respond which then sends another signal back down to the body. This is why when someone is paralised they still don't feel anything below where the damage is, even if the spine is healthy below. I still think that the brain is a viable option when it comes to disconnecting one's self from pain.

As for phantom pain, there are theories being tested into the brain being responsible for that as well. Kind of along the lines of the brain trying to trick/reassure itself that a part of the body which has been there it's whole life isn't actually missing.

gabriella · 08-23-2004, 11:24 AM

Yeah, it's possible... one girl had them removed. But it turned out to be a lot worse for her, because she was walking on the beach and cut her foot on a seashell or something. But, because she had the nerves removed, she didn't feel anything and she was literally leaving a trail of blood behind her. As for surgery.... In the middle ages, they weren't that far behind in their surgeries like people think. Did you know that you could actually get a somewhat successful nosejob?

But then, you could also use spells and magic to get rid of the pain. If you're using herbs, then have some freaky herb lady heal him, and don't say what she uses. Write the scene from the other people's perspectives so that the readers are clueless as to exactly what she did =)

Another thing, since this is fantasy, you could always have the people just kill him, nice and quick with a sword to "put him out of his misery." Sounds like it doesn't really matter how he dies, so you can just work your way around it instead of getting into the technicalities.

Talia_Brie · 08-23-2004, 09:39 PM

Being fantasy I don't know why you can't have some voodoo shaman stick a needle into someone's head and remove their ability to register pain. That kind of "near-science" can be a successful element of fantasy. It calls on ideas of traditional medicine.