Vol. 10, Issue 3, Part A (2022)
Conceptual aspects of Waja (pain): A review
Author(s): Saif Ali Siddiqui, Mohammad Shoaib, Asia Sultana, Mohammad Anas and Rizwan Hasan Khan
Abstract: Pain is the fifth vital sign and it is the most common reason for physician consultation. Pain is highly subjective and an unpleasant sensory experience that interferes with the daily life activities of a person and the general functioning of the body. Most of the pain is due to tissues/ cell injury while psychological factors aggravate or decrease the intensity of pain. People respond to pain differently. Some people have high pain tolerance, while others have a low tolerance depending on their psychological status. Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, protect a damaged body part while it heals, and avoid similar experiences in the future. Mostly pain resolves once the noxious stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but it may persist despite the removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body. Sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage, or disease. Unani scholars described that unpleasant sensation against physis (tabiyat) is called pain and the cause of pain is sue-mizaj (Impaired temperament) and taffaruke-ittisal (discontinuity). Pain occurs due to the accumulation of morbid humors (inflammatory mediators) which is responsible for sue mizaj and damage of cell or tissues (Taffaruke-ittisal) leads to the release of inflammatory mediators which irritate or sensitize the surrounding nerve and this painful impulse travel through the nerve and spinal cord to the brain. In the condition of severe neuropathy, the perception of pain may be stopped, and sometimes it may be life-threatening that as silent myocardial infarction in the case of Diabetic neuropathy. The characteristics and site of pain indicate the abnormal functioning of organs of the body. In the Unani system of medicine, pain is classified into fifteen types based on severity, quality, nature, and site of the pain. In this paper, Unani and modern aspects of pain are discussed here in detail.
How to cite this article:
Saif Ali Siddiqui, Mohammad Shoaib, Asia Sultana, Mohammad Anas, Rizwan Hasan Khan. Conceptual aspects of Waja (pain): A review. Int J Herb Med 2022;10(3):09-14.