Sources of Pain
Do you suffer from persistent pain that does not respond to any treatment despite repeated visits to the best doctors? Multiple pathologies in joints, tendons and ligaments can co-exist and each one can perpetuate pain. Furthermore, not all pathologies can be identified on imaging.
A treatment that will yield good long term results must be based on a systematic and methodical clinical evaluation.
Types of Pain
Pain is not necessarily equivalent to damage to the body’s tissues. Pain can manifest even before any damage occurs or without any damage at all. Pain is also influenced by the emotional experience of the patient regarding the pain, especially when the pain interferes with daily functioning. Therefore, quantifying pain objectively is extremely challenging. Emotionally, there is a significant impact not only on the experience of pain but also on its persistence over time. Even when pain has a physical origin and stems from actual tissue damage, a person who is anxious, depressed, or fixates on the pain and fears normal activities due to the pain will contribute to the perpetuation of the pain and its persistence.
Pain is divided into two types, acute and chronic pain. Acute pain is positive and has a clear purpose. If a person accidentally places their hand in fire, or cuts it with a knife, they would want to know as quickly as possible that they should remove their hand from the source of danger. Even acute pain that lasts a few days is highly beneficial because it protects the injured area from further injury, unnecessary strain, and prevents overloading the injured limb. For example, an injury can heal well and the damage will not worsen.
Chronic pain is defined as pain that lasts more than six months. Chronic pain in itself is classified as a disease in its own right and incurs enormous financial costs worldwide, affecting up to 20% of the population.
There are different types of pain, mainly divided into somatic pain (originating from muscles, ligaments, tendons, joints, and bones), visceral pain from internal organs, and neuropathic pain from nerves. However, sometimes there are pains from different sources with pain components from more than one of the above groups. For example, back pain may have a primarily somatic component but also potentially a neuropathic component. The following discussion deals with pain from different sources; the main components are detailed.