Pain
What is Pain?
Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience, with tissue damage or described in those terms.
Pain has protective functions against damage
Pain has multiple dimensions:
Sensory
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Affective
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Cognitive
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Pain has Many Forms
Acute: involves inflammation
- sharp pain
- discriminative
- mainly carried by Aδ fibres, so fast
Dull: diffuse, aching pain
- mainly carried by C fibres
Persistent: involves peripheral and central sensitization
Chronic: neuroplastic changes in the central and peripheral nervous system
Painful Stimuli
Physiological
- mediated by nociceptors (temperature, chemical, pressure)
Inflammatory
- ie trauma, arthritis
Neuropathic
- diabetic neuropathy
- post-herpetic neuralgia
- post-trauma/surgery