Pain - Acute and Chronic

The word suffering is sometimes used in the narrow sense of physical pain, but more often it refers to mental or emotional pain, or more often yet to pain in the broad sense, i.e. to any unpleasant feeling, emotion or sensation. The word pain usually refers to physical pain, but it is also a common synonym of suffering.

The words pain and suffering are often used both together in different ways. Or they may be used in 'contradistinction' to one another, as in "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional", or "pain is physical, suffering is mental". Or they may be used to define each other, as in "pain is physical suffering", or "suffering is severe physical or mental pain".

So What is Pain?

Pain, in the sense of physical pain, is a typical sensory experience defined as the unpleasant awareness of a noxious stimulus or bodily harm. Individuals experience pain by various daily hurts and aches, and occasionally through more serious injuries or illnesses.

Pain is highly subjective to the individual experiencing it and is a major symptom in many medical conditions, significantly interfering with a person's quality of life and general functioning.

Typical descriptions of pain quality include sharp, stabbing, tearing, squeezing, cramping, burning, lancinating (electric-shock like), or heaviness. It may be experienced as throbbing, dull, nauseating, shooting or a combination of these.

Pain may range in intensity from slight through severe to agonizing and can appear as constant or intermittent.

Diagnosis is based on characterizing pain in various ways, according to duration, intensity, type (dull, burning or stabbing), source, or location in body. Usually pain stops without treatment or responds to simple measures such as resting or taking an analgesic, and it is then called ‘acute’ pain. But it may also become intractable and develop into a condition called chronic pain, in which pain is no longer considered a symptom but an illness by itself.

To establish an understanding of an individual's pain, health-care practitioners will typically try to establish certain characteristics of the pain: site, onset and offset, character, radiation, associated symptoms, time pattern, exacerbating and ameliorating factors and severity.

Medical management of pain has given rise to a distinction between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is 'normal' pain, it is felt when hurting a toe, breaking a bone, having a toothache, or walking after an extensive surgical operation. Chronic pain is a 'pain illness', it is felt day after day, month after month, and seems impossible to heal.

Types of Pain:

Psychogenic pain, also called psychalgia or somatoform pain, is physical pain that is caused, increased, or prolonged by mental, emotional, or behavioral factors. Headache, back pain, or stomach pain are some of the most common types of psychogenic pain.

Phantom pain is the sensation of pain from a limb or organ that has been lost or from which a person no longer receives physical signals. Phantom limb pain is an experience almost universally reported by amputees and quadriplegics. Phantom pain is a neuropathic pain.

Acute pain: Pain that comes on quickly, can be severe, but lasts a relatively short time. As opposed to chronic pain. Acute pain serves as a warning of disease or a threat to the body.

Chronic pain is defined as pain that persists longer than the temporal course of natural healing, associated with a particular type of injury or disease process. Chronic pain impairs the ability to direct attention, in particular when compared to peers with low intensity or no chronic pain, people with high-intensity chronic pain have significantly reduced ability to perform attention-demanding tasks.

Pain and Pain Management

Chest Pain

Neck Disc Pain

Gall Bladder Back Pain

Further Information Regarding Pain - Acute and Chronic

Ineffective Pain Care Costing Over $100 Billion Annually
A new Pain Medicine Position Paper published by leaders of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM), reveals businesses lose $61 billion annually due to ineffective pain care and the lack of optimal pain care delivery. Leaders from the organization are now implementing and teaching a new, "population-based" approach to delivering care with the goal of alleviating pain so patients can get on with their lives.

Less Chronic Pain when Taking Combined Drugs
When given both an anti-seizure drug (gabapentin) and an antidepressant (nortriptyline), patients suffering from neuropathic pain caused by nerve damage or disease experienced less pain than when they took one or the other individually.

Relieving Pain Meeting in Australia
An unprecedented gathering of some of Australia's leading authorities in pain medicine, together with consumer groups representing chronic pain sufferers, will meet in Melbourne today to work towards a national, coordinated approach to managing chronic pain.

Pain Increases Signs of Aging by 2 to 3 Decades in Middle Aged Adults
Younger people with pain look similar in terms of their disability to people who are two to three decades older without pain, according to a study published in this month's issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. The results of the study uncovered that people with pain develop the functional limitations classically associated with aging at much earlier ages.

Kidney Pain in Lower Back
Kidney pain and back pain can have similar symptoms that have entirely different causes. You can have back pain symptoms that are caused by a kidney infection, while another person could have the exact same symptoms caused by a back problem.

Pain Treatment for Cancer Patients?
The results of the research of the international working group headed by Professor Dr. Rohini Kuner indicate a new approach for the development of effective pain medication for cancer patients. The work has now been published online in the prestigious journal "Nature Medicine".

Pain Effects the Economy and Workplace
Pain is hurting our economy and debilitating productivity in the Canadian workplace, says a recent survey conducted by Nanos Research on behalf of painexplained.ca, an advocacy and awareness campaign committed to raising awareness of the issue of under-treated pain in Canada.

Anxiety Increases Pain Intensity and Disability
British researchers writing in The Journal of Pain, the peer-review publication of the American Pain Society, found that individuals with high levels of anxiety due to chronic pain exhibit more emotional distress and disability, but the use of pain coping strategies can mediate this effect.

Pain in the ICU Report Suggests Comprehensive Approach
Managing pain in the ICU is an ongoing and significant challenge for the critical care team. However, new reports suggest that taking a comprehensive approach to pain management may be the key to managing pain in the ICU and even decreasing the incidence of preventable pain.

Bedside Test Improves Diagnosis of Chronic Back Pain
A simple and inexpensive method of assessing pain, developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers, is better than currently used techniques for distinguishing neuropathic pain, pain caused by damage to the nervous system, from other types of chronic back pain.

Chronic Pain Sufferers May Need to Assess Vitamin D Status
Mayo Clinic research shows a correlation between inadequate vitamin D levels and the amount of narcotic medication taken by patients who have chronic pain. This correlation is an important finding as researchers discover new ways to treat chronic pain.

I Feel Your Pain: Neural Mechanisms of Empathy
Is it possible to share a pain that you observe in another but have never actually experienced yourself? A new study uses a sophisticated brain-imaging technique to try and answer this question. The research, published by Cell Press provides insight into brain mechanisms involved in empathy.

Pain Treatment Reports Often Cannot be Trusted
According to an evidence-based review at Pain-Topics.org, healthcare providers and others need to be more skeptical about what they read, hear at conferences, or see on the Internet regarding the validity of research on pain management practices.

Painful Joints
Arthralgia is the medical term for pain in the joints and there can be several different causes. This article provides information on the causes and treatment of pain in the joints including arthralgia, arthritis, and osteoarthritis.

Pain Manipulation Under Anesthesia
Manipulation Under Anesthesia, or, MUA, is a medical procedure that is helping those chronic pain patients who thought that they had reached the end of the rope with regard to finding pain relief.