Types Of Extended Pain
There are two main types of pain: short term (also known as acute) and long term (also known as chronic). Pain, although inconvenient and uncomfortable, is generally a good thing in that it lets you know that there's something wrong with your body and you need to relax or stop whatever action you're doing. Pain can let you know that it's time to take things easy so that your body can heal itself. This is the description for acute pain. Pain becomes a problem when it lasts a long time for no apparent reason.
Pain that lasts for at least three months is considered chronic. Often chronic pain starts off as acute pain in response to an injury of some sort. But for reasons that aren't entirely explainable, the nerves in the body become more sensitive and send pain signals to the brain even though there is no injury that requires healing.
Chronic pain is the type that often sends people to pain clinics in order to find some relief. Constant pain can be physically draining and psychologically taxing. Often people who experience unrelenting pain day in and day out become depressed. They're tired of the extreme discomfort they're always in and they are upset because they're often not able to do even a fraction of the things that they were once able to do.
Doctors have not always been able to determine precisely what the chronic pain is. Certain types of chronic pain have been categorized into illnesses as a way to try to organize the type of extended pain in order to provide some treatment for it. An example of a type of illness that is basically an unexplainable type of chronic pain is fibromyalgia.
This illness usually affects women with symptoms generally appearing in women in their late 30s to late 50s. It's a chronic pain of the muscles and ligaments that causes stiffness, muscular pain, sleep problems, fatigue, depression and an inability to think clearly.
There is no known cause of this illness. It was once considered a disease that was all in the affected person's head because there wasn't (and still isn't) much medical data to back it up or explain why this type of pain affects some people instead of others. More recent research suggests that those afflicted have a higher substance P, the chemical in the cerebrospinal fluid, that is three times more than those who don't have the disease. This causes those with fibromyalgia to experience pain significantly more intensely.
Speculation of the other causes is rampant, although not proven. Some researchers believe that those with fibromyalgia are unable to reach stage 4 sleep which is the time that the body refreshes itself and the muscles recover from the activity of the day before. Studies of unaffected volunteers who were deprived of stage 4 sleep began to have similar symptoms to fibromyalgia.
The pain for those with the illness is exhausting which often leads them to a pain clinic to try to get some relief from the pain. The pain is in the muscles and ligaments, not the joints like arthritis. It's most often felt in the shoulders, back, neck and hips with the pain more tense in the mornings. The pain has been described as burning, aching, throbbing or stabbing. Medical treatment provided in a pain clinic can include injections and anti seizure drugs.
Pain that lasts for at least three months is considered chronic. Often chronic pain starts off as acute pain in response to an injury of some sort. But for reasons that aren't entirely explainable, the nerves in the body become more sensitive and send pain signals to the brain even though there is no injury that requires healing.
Chronic pain is the type that often sends people to pain clinics in order to find some relief. Constant pain can be physically draining and psychologically taxing. Often people who experience unrelenting pain day in and day out become depressed. They're tired of the extreme discomfort they're always in and they are upset because they're often not able to do even a fraction of the things that they were once able to do.
Doctors have not always been able to determine precisely what the chronic pain is. Certain types of chronic pain have been categorized into illnesses as a way to try to organize the type of extended pain in order to provide some treatment for it. An example of a type of illness that is basically an unexplainable type of chronic pain is fibromyalgia.
This illness usually affects women with symptoms generally appearing in women in their late 30s to late 50s. It's a chronic pain of the muscles and ligaments that causes stiffness, muscular pain, sleep problems, fatigue, depression and an inability to think clearly.
There is no known cause of this illness. It was once considered a disease that was all in the affected person's head because there wasn't (and still isn't) much medical data to back it up or explain why this type of pain affects some people instead of others. More recent research suggests that those afflicted have a higher substance P, the chemical in the cerebrospinal fluid, that is three times more than those who don't have the disease. This causes those with fibromyalgia to experience pain significantly more intensely.
Speculation of the other causes is rampant, although not proven. Some researchers believe that those with fibromyalgia are unable to reach stage 4 sleep which is the time that the body refreshes itself and the muscles recover from the activity of the day before. Studies of unaffected volunteers who were deprived of stage 4 sleep began to have similar symptoms to fibromyalgia.
The pain for those with the illness is exhausting which often leads them to a pain clinic to try to get some relief from the pain. The pain is in the muscles and ligaments, not the joints like arthritis. It's most often felt in the shoulders, back, neck and hips with the pain more tense in the mornings. The pain has been described as burning, aching, throbbing or stabbing. Medical treatment provided in a pain clinic can include injections and anti seizure drugs.
Source...