UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PAIN

Pain is an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity associated with injury, disease, or even emotion.

Simply put, there are two types of pain:

1. Acute Pain

Acute pain occurs as a result of recent injury to the body and generally disappears when the physical injury heals. Acute pain is generally associated with nociceptive pain, which arises from various kinds of trouble in tissues, reported to the brain by the nervous system. This is the type of pain everyone is most familiar with, everything from bee stings, burns and toe stubs to repetitive strain injury, nausea, tumours, and inflammatory arthritis. Nociceptive pain typically changes with movement, position, and load. Stress and tension are commonly associated with acute pain and is able to exacerbate the pain.

Patients are generally able to describe acute pain as dull, sharp, burning, aching and throbbing.

Some Examples of acute pain include:

• Muscular strain

• Joint or ligament sprain

• Labour and delivery

• Dislocations or fractures

2. Chronic Pain

Chronic or persistent pain lasts longer than the normal healing period (usually at least 3 months). The pain may be a result of several issues and is usually vague in presentation. Chronic pain is highly correlated to depression and stress as the body is put through pain for long periods of time. You may forget what “not having pain” may feel like.

Neuropathic chronic pain is a type of pain that is caused by injury to a nerve. Patients describe the pain as having tingling, numbness or even burning sensations travel/refer down the extremities (arms and legs).

Common types of Neuropathic pain includes:

• Sciatica – Nerve pain travelling down the leg as a result of nerve compression from a disc in the spine or tight muscle in the glute.

• Cervical Radiculopathy-Nerve root in the cervical spine becomes inflamed or damaged, resulting in a change in neurological function. Neurological deficits, such as numbness, altered reflexes, or weakness, may radiate anywhere from the neck into the shoulder, arm, hand, or fingers.

• Diabetic Neuropathy - Nerve damage as a result of persistently high blood sugar levels.

Non-neuropathic chronic pain is not caused by damage or injury to a nerve. This pain is as a result of neglect or management of acute pain that is left to progress and worsen. Treatments for Non-neuropathic chronic pain are generally time consuming and expensive.

Most patients describe these conditions as poorly localised deep ache/dull pain, pounding or gnawing.

Common types of Non-neuropathic pain includes:

• Chronic lower back pain- pain in the lower back as a result of persistent muscle spasm, ligament sprains, arthritis or damaged discs.

• Osteoarthritis- arthritis resulting from wear and tear of the joints and aging.

There are also many other common chronic pain syndromes that are unclassified. Disorders such as Fibromyalgia, headaches and Irritable bowel syndrome.

What we do know is pain is predictably unpredictable, thanks to the brain! Regardless of type, all pain is weird in some typical ways, because it’s all under the control of our brains, and brains have complicated and conflicting priorities for us that we are oblivious to. If the nervous system has any damage or injury(neuropathic pain), then the brain may be getting bad or incorrect information. That is where Chiropractic care can help. By relieving the pressure off of the nervous system, this allows the nerves to fire correctly and send the correct information to the brain allowing it to help the body heal and communicate correctly, which allows you to thrive!

Cheers,

Team Hughes Chiropractic

(Blog post is written from a combination of my experiences and the various research I have read over time).