Americans are afraid of pain

for a long time, I have been plagued by a question: why are Americans so afraid of pain?

when I went to see a doctor in the hospital for the first time in the United States, the nurse asked me to fill out a bunch of forms and asked: & quot;, have you had any pain recently? If so, how would you rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10? & quot;

how to answer this question? Is it possible that American children have received any special education from an early age to turn their feelings into numbers?

so I asked the nurse why I asked the question. The nurse said, "in order to see how strong your tolerance is, some people need to take painkillers at 3, while others can stand it at 7 or 8."

"but everyone's 3 and 8 are different. How does your 3 compare with other people's 8?" I couldn't help saying, "Oh, no, why did I compete with the nurse?"

the nurse girl was very patient. she just smiled and shrugged and said, "you don't need to compare yourself to others, just compare yourself to yourself."

in the end, I didn't understand the meaning of asking this question. Just scribbled a number as an answer. But since that day, I have been thinking, why are Americans so afraid of pain?

if they are not afraid of pain, why do so many painkillers sell on TV? Also, there is a clinic called\ & quot; pain clinic\ & quot; on the street, which is as ubiquitous as dentists. A special clinic can be set up to treat pain! This also surprised me for a long time. Pain has become a special department, which requires a vast market, and how many patients are afraid of pain.

however, pain is not a disease, it's just a sign. There are different reasons for different pains. No matter what the disease is, take painkillers as long as it hurts. According to our Chinese, isn't that a palliative rather than a permanent cure? Americans who are more advanced in medicine than China and are so obsessed with painkillers, I think they are probably genetically different from us and are more afraid of pain than we are.

Zhang Facai, my American husband, provides me with a further basis for this view. We have several painkillers at home all the year round, and whenever I mention the word "pain", he will say, "take painkillers."

my muscles are sore when I climb the mountain, he said. Take painkillers.

my knee is scraped and my skin hurts when it grows. He said, "take painkillers."

I have occasional headaches before and after my period, and he will immediately say, "take painkillers."

it's not just pain. I find that Americans can't stand any physical discomfort and must be treated. I have always felt that a series of discomfort before and after the period is normal and a part of life. But Zhang Facai didn't see it that way. He said that it was abnormal for me to be sentimental, love Rest and have occasional headaches in those days of the month. I had to see a doctor.

I have been nagged by him for a long time, and I am becoming more and more curious about what American doctors think of PMS. Last week, I finally went to see a gynecologist.

my doctor's name is Cross, a capable woman in her fifties, who seems to be very popular because her appointment is more than a month ahead of schedule. Like all doctors, she looked like she was in a hurry to do something. After listening to my statement, she took the disposable sheets that were supposed to examine me as a blackboard and took a physiology and health class.

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she started with periodic changes in estrogen and progesterone and said that about 10% of women have premenstrual syndrome. Why do some people have some people and some people don't? I do not know, the current treatments, in turn, there are 7, respectively, 1, eat light food, increase exercise; 2, supplement calcium tablets; 3, supplement magnesium tablets; 4, supplement vitamin B; 5, take contraceptive (taking contraceptives will also reduce the incidence of ovarian and uterine cancer by 50%); 6, take small doses of antidepressant drugs; 7, carry out hormone intervention, such as topical progesterone ointment. These methods should be tried one by one from 1 to 7, and then observe the effect, everyone is different, so do not know which method can be effective for whom.

the only way is to try.

I listened to her in one breath and asked my question: "in China, all kinds of changes before and after menstruation are considered to be a natural process. If we artificially interfere with the changes of hormones in the body in order to eliminate discomfort, is it a bit against the laws of nature?"

Dr. Cross looked at me in amazement. She froze for a moment and said, "but it will reduce your pain."

so I went home with a disposable sheet and a bunch of questions. Now I have more questions about the medical logic of the United States. It turns out that it is not only the symptoms of pain but not the root cause of the disease, but also premenstrual syndrome. On weekdays, I am used to going to the hospital when I am sick, but I have never thought about how many diseases begin to be treated after finding out the whole context. How many kinds of treatments are there just to relieve the pain, but they don't know how to solve the cause? In that case, there is no essential difference between modern medicine and ancient witch doctors.

yesterday I came across a video in which Rob Preece, an Englishman who has been a Lama in Tibet for 40 years, said that he had encountered a huge problem in the process of learning Tibetan Buddhism. In the end, he found out the answer to this question. He said that Western society pays attention to emotions and feelings, and a lot of efforts have been made in the field of psychology in modern times, so happiness and unhappiness are regarded as the standard of life. While Easterners do not emphasize this point, Tibetans, he said, have never seen a Western Tibetan express his own view of whether he is happy or not. Tibetans have a completely different view of life.

the speech of the British Lama inspired me a lot. All my questions about seeing a doctor in the United States point to one problem, the understanding of pain and life in the East and the West. What is rooted in our oriental culture is the experience and respect for the process of life.There is no clear line between heavy, good and bad. Western society seems to pay more attention to solving practical problems, which is a good thing to a certain extent, but when it comes to the extreme, there will be a lot of problems. I have found that in this country, people pay too much attention to superficial feelings and cannot accept the complexity of things and the uncontrollable life, which leads to a lot of psychological and social problems. And most people, do not have the opportunity and ability to think deeply about these problems, people are imbued with all kinds of information before they know it.

finally, I found a little answer to my question. Americans are not more afraid of pain, they are just taught that pain is a feeling that must be removed immediately. And the most frightening thing is that it is probably only the drugmakers who have the money to buy TV commercials.

what a terrible truth!