Understanding Pain

In general, doctors divide pain into two categories, acute and chronic. Acute pain is temporary and usually results from tissue damage. The pain can last from a few seconds to many months, but it generally goes away as healing occurs. Pain from a fracture, a burn, or an overused muscle is acute.

Chronic pain lingers long after the normal healing process. Because it often develops gradually from nerve damage or from various diseases or traumas, chronic pain is difficult to live with. Similar to water flowing from an opened dam, nerves continue to transmit pain messages even after there’s no more tissue damage. Ranging from mild to extreme, chronic pain can last from a few months to several years. A complex problem, chronic pain also can alter a person’s behavior and wreak havoc with his or her emotions.

Because of these facts, more and more physicians across the country are taking pain management seriously. Now known as a damaging process in its own right instead of just a complement to disease or injury, pain can be controlled. Today physicians are partnering with their patients to help them not only treat, but live with, pain. You don’t have to suffer. Pain can almost always be controlled, but often it’s not.

Today health practitioners use a holistic approach to help people better manage their pain. Pain is not just physical but emotional as well. Most pain begins when special nerve endings (nociceptors) detect an unpleasant stimulus. Some nociceptors sense sharp blows, such as a punch across the face, and others sense heat, such as a burn. Other types sense pressure, temperature, and chemical changes. They can also detect inflammation caused by injury, disease, or infection.

Your emotions come into play when a pain signal reaches your brain and is filtered through your personal experience. Everything, from your upbringing and cultural attitude toward pain to your age and experiences of pain can impact the intensity of pain you experience. For example, if you’re shocked or scared to death of a dentist’s drill, your anxiety will cause undue pain.

Because studies show that emotionally strong people often require less medication to manage pain, doctors are combining traditional therapies with complementary and alternative therapies to help people manage their pain. From acupuncture to yoga, complementary and alternative therapies help people treat the underlying causes of pain within themselves. On the other hand, traditional medicines, such as ibuprofen and aspirin, help to treat pain itself. This interdisciplinary approach is helping to reduce pain and suffering and is finally catching on in this country.

By closely working with your doctor, you can learn to develop effective strategies to better manage your pain. An ongoing approach with plenty of follow-up doctor visits should be instituted to include symptom management, pain assessment, and treatment goals.

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