What is Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain is pain that does not go away after three months. Chronic pain can be persistent and varying in degrees of intensity or it can be intermittent (occurring on and off). Chronic pain can result from a known cause, such as a sport or work-related injury or surgery, such as inflamed joints. Chronic Pain can also be as a consequence of disease process, such as pain from spasticity in neuromuscular conditions as in cerebral palsy or spastic paraplegia; or it can be as a consequence of disease progression, such as pain from joint laxity and nerve impingement due to weak connective tissue as in Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes where multiple body functions can be affected.
Where known conditions and hereditary diseases are ruled out, chronic pain is now being considered a disease in its own right.
Chronic pain can be an abnormal processing of pain where the original injury or cause of acute pain has resolved, but the brains response to pain has failed to shut off. When this occurs, the response is still being triggered, however it is no longer signaling “danger” or “harm” but rather may be a problem of pain processing.
There are different types of chronic pain. Two of the major, non-cancer chronic pains are:
- Musculoskeletal Pain – Pain that affects the bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons. Musculoskeletal pain can result from various causes including sports or occupational injuries, motor vehicle collisions, repetitive strain injuries and disease processes, such as, arthritis.
- Neuropathic Pain – A complex, multi-faceted state of chronic pain that may have no obvious cause. It can involve damaged tissue, injury or malfunctioning nerve fibers or changes in brain processing. An example of neuropathic pain is phantom limb syndrome. The brain still receives signals from nerves that originally carried impulses from the now missing limb. Other types of neuropathic pain include numbness, burning, “pins and needles” sensations and shooting pain.
