Awareness of pain

Zadok

Registered User
Mar 15, 2006
68
0
Kent
I posted a little about this before but realised I needed to make a new thread so people could see it!
Mum put her hand on the electric plate on her cooker on Tuesday and has a nasty burn which is being treated. It is difficult for her to recall how she did it or to explain the type and position of the pain. Has this terrible disease changed her perception of pain or just her ability to communicate how she feels?
 

Skye

Registered User
Aug 29, 2006
17,000
0
SW Scotland
Hi Zadok

I can't really answer your question, none of us can see inside the brains of people with AD.

I can just give you a similar example -- my husband John had a bad fall outside the house on New Year's Day. He had been running!

I still don't know why he was running, and although he was badly bruised and grazed, he had no real awareness of pain, except when he tried to put weight on his hands. He had wrenched his wrists in the fall.

Sorry, this doesn't really help you. I think we're all up against the unexplainable.
 

twink

Registered User
Oct 28, 2005
265
0
71
Cambridgeshire UK
My husband has Rheumatoid Arthritis and if often in a lot of pain when he has a flare up and the nurses have told me that when his wrist is really hurting, he goes to them and just hlds his hand out and rubs it so they know he's in pain.

Not very helpful, sorry but this is all I know about his particular pain.

Sue
 

mel

Registered User
Apr 30, 2006
1,656
0
66
Sheffield
Hi Zadok
It's tricky......
Mum seemed unable to communicate when in pain. She would often wince and if I asked her if she was in pain she would say "No".
She also seemed to lose the ability of knowing if something was hot or cold. If the shower was cool she'd say it was "red hot" and vice versa.
Towards the end of her life, she broke her hip and didn't appear to feel the pain at all
 

Nebiroth

Registered User
Aug 20, 2006
3,510
0
We get the opposite, my Dad is always complaining that he is in pain. It is nearly always down to the little aches and pains you would expect an 81-year-old to get (or indeed anyone, we all get twinges now and then).

I think that his tolerance of pain has decreased - it is a matter of inhibitions being forgotten as time goes on, and he now complains of every little ache, much as a small child or baby will cry because they "hurt" even though they can't really say how much, or why.

Of course, we can't ignore it, because once or twice the cause has been something more seriious, including an ingrowing toenail.
 

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