Made the mistake of going into the office the other day. My boss gave me a funny look. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?” she asked. She was not expressing uncertainty over whether I was still employed by the company but, touchingly, concern about my welfare. Possibly she had a point. I had caught a glimpse of my reflection on the way in and saw a man with all the ruddiness and healthful glow of Banquo’s ghost. The consultant had told me to take it easy while the kidney recovered from its dramatic reaction to the assault on the cuckoo stones. He had suggested that I work from home. But I was bored one day and decided to haunt my colleagues. Unfortunately, it seems that too many of them are afeared of the supernatural, so here I am working from home again.

This has some advantages. I can closely monitor the activity of two enormous building cranes that dominate the sliver of skyline I can see from my study window and I can eat a packet of Jaffa cakes a day without having to share them. I have also been thinking about pain. I read a fascinating article about a technological breakthrough that is allowing patients to see their pain. They are hooked up to an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scanner, at Stanford University, in California, that allows them to watch brain activity through 3-D goggles. The activity in the area of the brain that is key to registering awareness of pain is represented by images of flames. The bigger the flames, the bigger the pain. While looking at the images and thinking about them over several sessions, patients have been able to reduce their pain significantly.

As yet, The New York Times reported, nobody knows how the brain does this. Of course, certain religious devotees have long had the knack of inflicting grievous wounds on themselves without apparently feeling the slightest discomfort. But for those of us who are not members of such cults, this new evidence of the power of the mind to control pain is very encouraging, even if it might be some time before the technology has been developed to allow us to sport special 3-D glasses and think the right pain-busting thoughts every time we feel a migraine coming on.

In the meantime, one either needs to be David Beckham, who says he enjoys the pain of the tattoo artist’s needle, or to play a chemical trick on the body. I have always been a reluctant pill popper. But in this case I had no choice, and the relief the painkillers have given is unmistakable. After three weeks of taking them, however, I was uneasy. I was obsessively recording when I took them to ensure that I didn’t exceed the prescribed dose in any 24-hour period. Then I forgot to record a dose, or thought I had, and at 4am one day was wondering how long it would be before I was hooked. Or maybe I already was, and as soon as I tried to wean myself off them I would be suffering hideous withdrawal symptoms.

Of course, three weeks isn’t long at all. But that’s the way the mind starts to work when you’ve spent too long watching cranes and gorging on Jaffa cakes. I’ve also seen the effects of painkiller addiction on a relative who was sent to the Priory to try to come off them. It was not a happy experience for anyone concerned. The group yoga sessions were particularly gruesome.

It was the boss’s husband who calmed me down. He’s a pain expert (as in a doctor specialising in pain, not a torturer or Sunderland fan). He said that as long as I was suffering genuine pain, I couldn’t get hooked. All in all, though, I can’t wait for the 3-D glasses. Should be a lot more fun. Just as long as the boffins can find a way of harnessing the technology that doesn’t require us all to lug a massive million-quid scanner around behind us whenever we’ve got a stomach ache.

damian.whitworth@thetimes.co.uk