What are the five types of Pain?

Chronic Pain – Chronic pain is often lasts much longer than a standard bout of pain. Sometimes the chronic pain is without end and can be constant or occur intermittently. It can occur in various forms via injuries, illnesses and imbalances within the body and can be involved in each of the following groups of pain too!

Acute Pain – Acute pain is basically the opposite of chronic. It’s usually shorter in duration but usually no longer than two to six months. It usually has an end and can be remedied, will heal and will disappear eventually in most cases. It often takes the form of a muscular or skeletal injury and the body can usually bounce back with the right treatment and circumstances. Acute pain can evolve into the above chronic pain however if not managed properly or through bad luck. A common example would be any pelvic or leg injury which can impact the health of the lower back long term.

Radicular Pain – Radicular pain is pain caused when the spinal nerve and column become disrupted, inflamed, compressed and/or broken. If anything interferes with that nerve, then pain is often felt down the back, the pelvis, the hips and into the legs and feet. Sciatica is a common form of radicular pain, and one I suffer with myself from an injury playing rugby as a teenager. The sensations include tingling, muscle tightness, numbness from nerve impingement and dull, aching pain throughout the lower limbs.

Nociceptive Pain – Nociceptive pain pain that involves the soft tissue of our bodies. Cuts, grazes, and wounds are good examples and often caused by something external causing damage to the outer layers and deeper layers of the skin, muscle, ligaments, tendons, and bones. It can develop into chronic pain, as well as be felt as acute due to its simularities. A burn is an anomaly however, as it is nociceptive, acute and chronic pain at the same time. Burns can give pain for a very long time even after surgery, and often penetrate multiple skin layers.

Neuropathic Pain – Neuropathic pain is something slightly different altogether. It is pain felt by the body and brain as a result of the nervous system being damaged, disrupted and/or irregulated. This type of pain can take the form of all four of the previous types. It is highly irregular, often lacking true understanding of its source, and is very difficult to contain, regulate and stop. The intensities and sensations can vary from tingling and numbness in minor body parts, to being completely immobile and unable to walk due to the severity. It’s also largely invisible.

Pain is often so difficult to diagnose because it almost always falls into two or more of the five different types. Rarely is it one type, and it often changes types throughout the timeline of having that pain.

Conclusion

A slightly different concluding paragraph to my normal…go and look into each of these types yourself. Have a read about each in detail and see if you can slot your own pains into the different groups and don’t be surprised if each group is applicable! Knowing your own pain is key to managing and suppressing it, because methods differ from type to type. The more you know, the better.

Mark