• Question: Which are the disease that cause more pain in the human body?

    Asked by anon-256843 on 24 Jun 2020. This question was also asked by anon-256929.
    • Photo: Cameron Stockwell

      Cameron Stockwell answered on 24 Jun 2020:

      Pain is different per person and not all are related to pain, some diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease are slow and progressive and have little physical pain. The severity of diseases differs based on factors like the environment and genetics so the level of pain is unique to every individual

    • Photo: Rachel Tanner

      Rachel Tanner answered on 24 Jun 2020:

      Thanks for the question! In terms of infectious diseases, Shingles is known to be really painful! It’s caused by a herpes virus (the same one that causes chicken pox), but is most common in older people. The reason it’s so painful is because the virus infects the nerves, and causes painful rashes and itchy blisters. Some people get severe nerve pain that can last for years after they’ve cleared the disease.

    • Photo: Alex Holmes

      Alex Holmes answered on 24 Jun 2020:

      This is a really interesting question – because it’s one scientists are currently trying to figure out!

      There are some diseases that involve chronic pain or an over-sentitivity to pain or normal touch feels painful, like fibromyalgia for instance. Because scientists aren’t really sure how this is caused it’s super difficult to work out how to treat it, because a lot of normal painkillers like ibuprofen or paracetamol don’t work very well for these patients.

      Did you know there are also some people that can’t feel pain at all? It sounds really cool to never have a headache or notice stubbing your toe on furniture, but it’s actually really bad because pain is a normal way of knowing something isn’t right. You might have heard it’s possible to bite off your own finger, but the pain is what teaches you not to – if you don’t have that you can end up really damaging yourself.

      However, this is super interesting because scientists can work out why these people don’t feel pain and use that knowledge to create medicines that might stop people with chronic pain and painful diseases feeling as much pain.

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