ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the issues related to women and chronic pain, it is important to understand how one can think and talk about pain. The author reluctantly consulted a physician. Along with help from the X-ray department, the physician diagnosed a broken finger. Acute pain is of recent onset. There is tissue damage and the pain diminishes as the healing occurs. The body responds with autonomic changes that may include increased heart rate, changes in blood pressure, sweating hands, the sort of thing author experienced at the edge of the stream. In a very real way both doctors and patients are comfortable with the acute pain problem because it fits the biomedical model to a large degree. Chronic pain outlasts the recognized natural stimulus. Nociception is defined as a response that occurs specifically to potentially tissue-damaging stimulation. Models of pain evolved over the first part of this century, culminating in the gate control theory described by Mel-zack and Wall.
