What is pain?
Pain is defined as an “unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.”
Pain is a universal human experience, one that is protective at its core: Acute pain warns us of harm and prevents us from damaging our bodies, or limits that damage. We experience pain as unpleasant, and it generally signals us to move away from a dangerous situation or stimuli. Acute pain often disappears fairly quickly once we’re safe.
But acute pain doesn’t always resolve as expected, especially if it’s part of a disease process or begins with an injury that isn’t treated appropriately and swiftly. Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons adults seek medical treatment.
There are three types of pain classified by cause:
The pain you feel when you stub your toe or put your hand on a hot pan is called nociceptive pain. A sensory neuron—or nociceptor—transmits an electrical impulse to the spinal cord and then to the brain, where it is experienced as pain.
Inflammatory pain results from infection or tissue injury, leading to activation of the immune system.
The third type, pathological pain, is not protective and often results from peripheral nerve damage. “In some cases of neuropathy, nerves begin to fire spontaneously, leading to pain sensation in the absence of a stimulus.
Chronic pain is pain that lasts more than three months. Our pain systems become sensitised for days to weeks as we heal from an injury. Sometimes those sensitisation processes don’t go away and the person is in a state of chronic pain hypersensitivity. Some chronic pain sufferers experience pain even in the absence of touch or movement.
When pain persists after an injury or infection has healed, changes in the central nervous system may have occurred. In these cases, pain is no longer driven by nerves at the site of the initial injury, but instead by pathological changes in the brain or spinal cord.
At Epoch Health we leave no stones unturned. Finding the root cause of your pain is essential to a clearer progress. Looking for help? Chat with our friendly staff members about how we can help you improve your pain.