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I, like Stephanie, enjoyed the Beetle analogy. What disturbed me about the reading was that the doctors gave the older gentleman a higher dose of painkiller than he requested (or thought he needed). While it was somewhat heroic when I first read it, after I thought more about it, I felt the nurse and doctor had crossed some boundary by upping the dosage when the patient claimed he didn't need it. Whether the man truly did not feel the pain, wanted to look tough, or just didn't want to be given medication, that is not up to the doctor to decide. However, regarding the second patient who seemingly just wanted a fix, it was definitely necessary for the doctor to decide to ignore the patient's requests. I'm not exacty sure how a doctor is supposed to deal with a patient whos self-report is seemingly false (maybe that's where that cool new computer gadget can come in handy), but aside from my expertise in hospital drama tv shows, I'm not sure what the protocol is.

I'd like to briefly address the "all symptoms are psychosomatic" argument. Psychosomatic has a negative connotation behind it with the sense that it isn't actually real. However, as we discussed in our presentation, I'm not sure how much that matters. If I think hard enough that my ibuprofen is going to give me a stomach ache and then I get one, does that mean it isn't real? Is that psychosomatic? We don't know enough about the power of the innerworkings of our brains, and therefore cannot dismiss anything as merely "in the head". From another standpoint, if my ibuprofen bottle warns: may get stomach ache, and I get one, can I automatically attribute it to my ibuprofen? Even if it was caused by the medication, there is a psychosomatic element to all symptoms, but that doesn't mean that is all there is to them.

I also enjoyed our discussion about expectations of pain and which "hurts more". The fact that one person can have the same pain stimulus but in different situations can perceieve it differently is fascinating. If anyone has more information they can share on the current research trends of this topic I would love to learn more.

Someone also mentioned language of pain and how we don't have many ways of expressing ourselves (besides sharp, dull, etcetc). Being interested in language development, is anyone proficient in another language who may know if this is a universal phenomenon or if other languages have more explicit expressions of pain?