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What is Pain?
It is an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity associated with injury, disease, or emotional disorder.
Types of Pain
1/ Acute Pain – occurs as a result of injury to the body and generally disappears when the physical injury heals. Acute pain is linked to tissue injury. Anxiety is common with acute pain.
Examples include:
Symptoms: Patients is able to point to site of pain
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Sharp
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Burning
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Cramping
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Aching
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Pressured
2/ Chronic (Persistent) Pain – lasts beyond the normal healing period – usually at least 3 months. The pain may be multifocal and vague. There may be no signs on x-rays or scans to indicate the source of the pain since some pain may be generated by tissue injury. Depression is common with chronic pain.
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 burning sensation. Neuropathic pain is difficult to treat.
Common types of neuropathic chronic pain include:
Diabetic neuropathy – nerve damage as a result of high blood sugar.
Post- herpetic neuralgia – pain from shingles after the blisters have healed.
Peripheral vascular disease – pain in legs, usually during activity, from lack of
blood supply to the extremities. The legs may be discoloured, cold, and the skin
may be shiny.
Symptoms:
Non-neuropathic Chronic Pain – is pain that is not caused by injury to the nerve.
The most common types include:
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Low back pain – pain in the lower back from muscles, ligaments, tendons, arthritis or damaged discs.
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Osteoarthritis- arthritis resulting from wear and tear of the joints and with normal aging.
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Rheumatoid arthritis – an autoimmune disorder resulting in pain, stiffness and inflammation of the joints.
Symptoms: Poorly localized pain (patients may not be able to point site of pain)
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Gnawing
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Pounding
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Deep aching
3/ Unknown – There are many chronic pain syndromes that are neither known to be chronic neither non-neuropathic nor neuropathic.
These include:
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Fibromyalgia syndrome – diffuse body pain with tenderness in the muscles.
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Tension headache – pressure type headache lasting days to weeks and often not severe.
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Migraine headache – episodic headache that persists for hours to days with nausea and is often severe.
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Irritable bowel syndrome ( IBS) abdominal pain with cramping, bloating, and constipation often alternating with diarrhoea.
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Some low back pain – back pain that is not muscular, not related to disc injury, and without a know cause.
Symptoms:
May be a combination of chronic non-neuropathic and neuropathic symptoms.
Treatment:
Specific treatment options need to be tailored to the individual patients.
Always professional therapist should determine the right treatment for you.
/When spinal deformities/
Pain killers or professional therapy based on exercises
Choice is Yours
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