Understanding Pain

Pain is the number one reason people seek medical advice. In the U.S. alone approximately 50 million people suffer from pain.1 By the end of 2007 the pharmaceutical global pain management costs were estimated to be 32 billion dollars yearly1.

Pain is part of the body's defense system, alerting people when something has gone wrong. Without pain disease, infection and injuries would progress undetected for long periods of time.

In a healthy functioning body, specialized nerve endings (nociceptors) located in the musculoskeletal system (skin, muscles, ligaments, bones and organs) are stimulated in response to injury, disease, infection, oxygen starvation, inflammation, stretch, heat, cold, and/or stress. Messages from the injured site are then sent to the spinal cord and onto the brain via nerve pathways. In the brain these nerve signals are interpreted as pain, which may range from discomfort to agony.

Pain may be short term (acute) or long term (chronic). It may be sharp, dull, burning or tingling, ongoing or intermittent. It may be located in one area (the place of injury), multiple areas (as in arthritis) or all over (i.e. the 'flu' influenza). 'Referred pain' is pain that is located in an area other than where the problem has arisen (i.e. heart pain may be felt in the shoulder or arm) or pain may appear to be coming from a limb that is no longer there; this is known as 'phantom pain'.

Regardless of the location, cause, duration or type of pain, it can have a negative impact on quality of life and once it has served its useful purpose, pain needs to be diagnosed and treated appropriately. Pain often goes untreated or under-treated because of fear of addiction and an inadequate understanding of pain and its treatments.