When pain lingers, another fear comes to us. Most of us fear death when faced directly with it, and lingering pain brings the fear of death even when the doctors assure us that there is nothing seriously wrong. Fear brings doubts: “Doctors make mistakes; and anyway they don’t tell you the worst.” If the pain is in the abdomen we are soon convinced that it is due to cancer; if it is in the chest we think of a coronary. Even when the pain is in some other part, if fear takes over, the same thoughts come to us. Strange as it may seem, in these circumstances the pain may spread so that we feel it in the heart, and fear leads us to think that the injury to our leg has brought on a heart attack.
The Destructive Effect of Pain-We can see, then, that instead of being a helpful warning against injury, pain that is too severe and too prolonged, when associated with distress and guilt and fear, soon becomes a destructive influence to both body and mind. It is only with the stoutest heart that morale does not weaken; and with failure of morale in any illness the healing process is correspondingly retarded. So anything that we can do in the way of learning the control of pain will not only boost our morale, but will also have an indirect effect on the physical healing of our body.
As an example of this process it is as well to recall that some years ago it was the custom to change the bandages on surgical wounds very frequently. This, particularly in the case of burns, would cause the patient great pain. The patient would wait in fear for the next change of dressings.
Children would scream at the approach of the nurses. Even before the advent of the antibiotic drugs, the change to less frequent dressings improved, both morale and healing.
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