Natural protection?

[Noodley]

I am just wondering how the body's "natural protection" works. I had a bit of a spill last week, and, although I knew at the time that a few parts were sore, it appears that my "sore bits" did not really hurt nor show signs of injury until a few days later. I saw the obvious cuts and scuffs, but if it were not for sight of these I dinnae reckon I would have known too much about them, and I am still finding "new" aches and quite extensive bruising (which is not sore) - yet the bits that were really "oww oww, of you fecker" sore at the time are the least sore now...

Anyone able to explain this?

 

[fuji-stu]

Is it something to do with when you hurt yourself the initial owch is just your bodys way of telling you that something is wrong and these pains quickley go as the nerves closest to the skin have a good blood supply and heal quicker? the bruses and swellers deeper in take longer and hurt longer beacause the healing is slower?

 

[lulubel]

What fuji-stu said, plus your body will have been flooded with endorphins when it first happened, which are an evolutionary trick to enable you to just get up and carry on if you need to in order to survive. I experienced this when I got knocked off my bike 6 weeks ago, and I casually walked home from the hospital, swinging my helmet by its chin strap, after I was checked over and had my face stitched up. On some level, I knew I must be in pain, but I was easily able to ignore it.

Again, what happened to me was that more pains developed over the following week or so. I think this happened as the initial swelling (particularly around my knees) went down, and feeling started coming back into areas that had been numbed by the impact.

 

[palinurus]

plus your body will have been flooded with endorphins when it first happened, which are an evolutionary trick to enable you to just get up and carry on if you need to in order to survive.

Which is why when I come off my bike, rather than lie down in the road, I immediately jump to my feet, start running around while throwing kicks at lampposts and stuff, all the time swearing loudly.

 

[palinurus]

If there's another vehicle involved then I don't tend to go for the lampposts.

 

[Becs]

endorphins are the body's natural morphine (they work by the same receptors in the brain), combine these with a large amount of adrenalin and you've got some very good initial pain relief. This will wear off over the first few hours and inflammation and swelling takes over, which are painful. The pain you feel will vary depending on what sort of pain receptors you activate (there are several, some feel like dull pain, others sharp pain). Activation can be by pressure (eg a bruise or swelling) but also by chemical signals that occur during inflammation - so the pain will last for quite a while as this subsides.

 

[Trevrev]

Which is why when I come off my bike, rather than lie down in the road, I immediately jump to my feet, start running around while throwing kicks at lampposts and stuff, all the time swearing loudly.

I did that years ago when i came off my motorbike. Jumped straight to my feet. Trouble was it made a nice clean break in my leg turn into a very nasty compound fracture. The bone snapped in two and sliced though my jeans and i fell over.