Control of pain?

Johnny Froth, modified 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 8:46 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 8:46 AM

Control of pain?

Posts: 59 Join Date: 1/25/12 Recent Posts
I was at the dentist yesterday for a filling, and was practicing "noting" during it. I wasn't bothered with pain, but I just thought it was a good use of the time while stuck in the chair.

But it reminded me of an online forum discussion I had years ago with a guy who had been meditating for years and who said that he had dental treatment without anesthesia using meditation to control the pain. Now he could have been talking nonsense, but the reason I thought it might be credible was that he admitted he was no longer able to do this because he had stopped his practice. And when I asked him why (why, after all, give up such an apparent super power), he replied that it was really hard work and a lot of time commitment to gain and maintain that level of proficiency. That tallies with some of the purely practical aspects of meditation I hear on DhO, and also, incidentally, with a comment I heard the Dali Lama once make, where he said that if some scientist could figure out a way of achieving with little or no effort what currently we only know how to achieve with a lot of effort, he would be delighted.

Countering this pain-control thing on the other hand, is a comment Daniel Ingram makes on one of the BudhistGeeks podcasts in which he recounts a story of Gautama where he (Gautama) was probably suffering from migraines but despite a high degree of meditation ability, was unable to shake the pain.

So, any comments? Dental fillings without anesthesia? Hokum or real? Have you done it or anything like it?

P.S. I tried but failed to find the forum where that thread was. I thought it was on www.skeptics.com, but I can't dig it up.
Change A, modified 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 9:20 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 9:20 AM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 791 Join Date: 5/24/10 Recent Posts
Johnny Froth:
Countering this pain-control thing on the other hand, is a comment Daniel Ingram makes on one of the BudhistGeeks podcasts in which he recounts a story of Gautama where he (Gautama) was probably suffering from migraines but despite a high degree of meditation ability, was unable to shake the pain.


I used to suffer from migraines as a child but then they stopped. After I started meditating, they returned for a while. But they were really easy to control (I had so much handle on them that I could either let them go on or could stop them) and then they went away again. In light of this, Gautama's story doesn't sound to be true.

In any ailment in which stress plays a factor (which is almost everything), meditation helps. It has helped me to an extent in which medical science would never have been able to. As an example, dandruff used to be a big issue for me. I even used corticosteroids for it but they could only bring symptomatic relief for the duration that I used it and I continued to lose hair even during their use. Now I have lot less dandruff as compared to earlier that I don't need to use even normal dandruff control shampoos. And I lose lot less hair and even new hair have started to regrow where I had gone bald.
Johnny Froth, modified 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 9:35 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 9:35 AM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 59 Join Date: 1/25/12 Recent Posts
Aman A.:
I used to suffer from migraines as a child but then they stopped. After I started meditating, they returned for a while. But they were really easy to control (I had so much handle on them that I could either let them go on or could stop them) and then they went away again. In light of this, Gautama's story doesn't sound to be true.


I don't think your experience necessarily has to invalidate Daniel's account. Presumably there is a range of intensities of migraines? Maybe Gautama's was of a particularly bad kind. And the migraine theory is only Daniel's -- I suspect all that is known is that the Buddha still reported a significant pain-inducing condition after enlightenment.

I *think* the podcast concerned is this one: http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2007/02/bg-006-you-can-do-it/
Sean Lindsay, modified 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 7:20 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 7:20 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 46 Join Date: 11/3/09 Recent Posts
Johnny Froth:
Dental fillings without anesthesia? Hokum or real? Have you done it or anything like it?


Two disconnected thoughts.

First, a few years ago (but after I had adopted a steady meditation practice) I found myself in exactly this situation. For anatomical reasons, apparently, the dentist couldn't get the anesthetic to reach the nerves in the upper molar where I had a damaged filling. He administered several shots of anesthetic without any numbing effect. Finally, he told me that he'd administered all the anesthetic he could give me lawfully (who knew there was a max?). But I still had a broken filling and no deadening of the pain. So it was either deal with the pain of an exposed nerve until the following day when he might be able to get me to a hospital where they could administered different kinds of pain killers, or to deal with the process of him drilling out the remains of the broken filling and then re-filling the cavity.

I told him to give me a couple of minutes. I spent those couple of minutes using concentration practice to zero in as tightly on the sensations of the breath as I could muster. Then I told him to go ahead with the drilling, cleaning, and re-filling. As he proceeded, I focused intensively on the breath. I was aware of the physical pain at the periphery of my awareness, but I kept the focus locked on the quieter sensations of the breath. Using that practice (a sort of first jhana kind of experience, built on the strongest vitakka-vicara I've ever generated) got me through the procedure without flinching or tensing or what have you.

Second, in studying the Abhidhamma on a recent retreat, I encountered an observation by a teacher to the effect of once the noticing practice becomes rapid enough, it can be interesting to interrupt the mental formation process that produces pain by interjecting an explicit vedana label into the mind-stream. While I've only practiced that technique while on that retreat, I was startled to find that it worked -- I had several back and neck muscles that had had enough by the end of the sixth or seventh day of sitting, but if I turned the mind-stream toward the pain, accelerated the noting speed to as fast as I could manage (I was in high equanimity at the time, so the speed was pretty high), by inserting the "uncomfortable" mental label into the thought stream, what had been manifesting as pain manifested, instead, as a constellation of bright energy sensations -- still unpleasant, but the pain qua pain was gone. I've not been able to successfully repeat that experience off of retreat. Not sure whether it was a flukey coincidence, something that depended on the momentum of retreat meditation, or what. But still, quite interesting.
thumbnail
josh r s, modified 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 7:40 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 7:40 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 337 Join Date: 9/16/11 Recent Posts
as best i can tell there are two directions you can go away from pain. one is to simply focus on something else, even up to the point where there is no sensory experience (thus no more pain) the other is to focus on getting rid of the affective addition to the raw pain, for example by focusing on the not-self perception in regards to the sensation.
Johnny Froth, modified 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 8:59 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/27/12 8:59 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 59 Join Date: 1/25/12 Recent Posts
Sean Lindsay:
Using that practice (a sort of first jhana kind of experience, built on the strongest vitakka-vicara I've ever generated) got me through the procedure without flinching or tensing or what have you.

Wow. And did the dentist comment at all? Was he surprised?

Actually, as I thought about my own question I remembered an experience of my own. This was when I was at high school, *many* moons ago, and pre-meditation days (which I only started last week). So if I was experiencing any of the effects I'm asking about, it was by accident and via another route.

I had an intensely sore throat, orders of magnitude of pain worse than anything I'd experienced before or have done since. (We thought it was glandular fever but it turned out not to be.) It lasted many days, and at its peak I spent the night downstairs on our couch, sometimes trying to sleep but sometimes trying to watch TV. At one point in the middle of the night, the pain intensity seemed to increase even more, and I found myself simply wondering in an outraged way, "What on earth *is* pain that it can have this effect on me?" As I began to muse on that -- I'm an inveterate muser -- I realized I was *observing* the pain, as opposed to, or at least in addition to, experiencing it.

When I spotted that phenomenon, *it* made me curious, and I began to ponder the whole notion of a difference between observing pain on the one hand, and experiencing pain on the other.

As it progressed, the "experiencing pain" component seemed to decrease and the "observing pain" component increased. Eventually I realized that although the pain was no less intense, the extent to which it was bothering me had diminished. It's hard to remember now, but I'm pretty sure there were moments where it was all observation and no experiencing. In those moments, I wasn't suffering at all.

It may just have been some kind of natural opioid thing, my body's response to the intensity of the pain. I've read that opiates have the effect of reducing our response to pain, not the level of pain. Or maybe I was just delirious. Or maybe it was something more jhana-ish? Shrug.
Sean Lindsay, modified 12 Years ago at 1/30/12 6:23 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/30/12 6:23 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 46 Join Date: 11/3/09 Recent Posts
Johnny Froth:
Wow. And did the dentist comment at all? Was he surprised?


Surprised would be an understatement. He thought it was some kind of mental toughness. From the inside, it didn't seem that way.

"Johnny Froth":
As I began to muse on that -- I'm an inveterate muser -- I realized I was *observing* the pain, as opposed to, or at least in addition to, experiencing it.

When I spotted that phenomenon, *it* made me curious, and I began to ponder the whole notion of a difference between observing pain on the one hand, and experiencing pain on the other.

As it progressed, the "experiencing pain" component seemed to decrease and the "observing pain" component increased. Eventually I realized that although the pain was no less intense, the extent to which it was bothering me had diminished. It's hard to remember now, but I'm pretty sure there were moments where it was all observation and no experiencing. In those moments, I wasn't suffering at all.

It may just have been some kind of natural opioid thing, my body's response to the intensity of the pain. I've read that opiates have the effect of reducing our response to pain, not the level of pain. Or maybe I was just delirious. Or maybe it was something more jhana-ish? Shrug.


Whatever the label for separating the mind into subject-witness/object-experience, it was an important step for me, as well. In my case, the dilemma was not pain but rather depression. It took meds for me initially to get enough relief from depression that I could turn my mind and life toward meditation, but when I did, I found that the part of my mind that was noticing the occurrence of depressive thoughts arising was not, itself, depressed. That perception gave me a "place" to stand when my experience was turning toward depression. And that very seeing, itself, seemed to de-energize the downward spiralling thoughts, both shortening and reducing the depth of my depressive episodes. Eventually, I no longer needed meds to control that aspect of mind.

And while I've come to conclude that the strongly formulated "witness" consciousness is, itself, also a construct, I still find it to be a useful one when my thoughts turn toward depression.
thumbnail
Jeff Grove, modified 12 Years ago at 1/30/12 8:35 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/30/12 8:23 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
Ghandi had an appendectomy without anesthetic, talking to people during the operation
Brother Pussycat, modified 12 Years ago at 2/21/12 11:54 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/21/12 11:54 AM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 77 Join Date: 12/21/11 Recent Posts
I've tried both focusing on the breath and noting while at the dentist. The latter is a very interesting experience, but the former worked better as a pain relief for me.
The Meditator, modified 12 Years ago at 2/21/12 5:27 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/21/12 5:22 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 153 Join Date: 5/16/11 Recent Posts
Hi
I always have a dental feeling without anaesthesia. I have about 6-7 fillings. I think it is many times told that meditation change our feeling of pain. The scientist show a change of a brain.
I am not sure that it is about a control of pain, it seems that it is more to be ready for a pain by your regular meditation. Regarding the effort, my opinion meditation is a "work" and it is funny to hear a type of meditation is effortless. But I think everybody knows it if he/she does a meditation.
Take care
The Meditator
The Meditator, modified 12 Years ago at 2/21/12 5:26 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/21/12 5:26 PM

RE: Control of pain?

Posts: 153 Join Date: 5/16/11 Recent Posts
I think doctors in the uk do not allowed it.