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What Is Chronic Pain? |
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Chronic pain is pain that has lasted between 3 to 6 months or longer. Chronic pain is complex; it does not always result from a specific incident or injury. It is also complex because it is much like chronic diseases like asthma, heart disease & diabetes; these diseases have to be managed on a regular basis as does chronic pain. Some diseases can also have chronic pain associated with them, which does complicate matters but does not mean the pain can not be managed.
The pain that occurs immediately when the body is injured is called ‘Acute Pain’. What can happen is an acute pain can become chronic. For instance a person may have an injury and after the actual injury has gone through the healing process pain continues in the general area of the injury or with nerves that are associated with the injured body part.
Chronic pain can come about in many ways. It can result from the accumulation of continuous daily activities. For example, if a person always bends over at the waist to pick up items on the floor and as a result the back muscles become stretched and the stomach muscles tight an imbalance between the low back and hips can occur causing pain.
Another way pain chronic pain can occur is, when an injury requires a person to compensate in their body movements to accommodate an injury.
 If a person injures their leg they may need to be on crutches, use a cane or wheelchair temporarily. While the injured leg is healing the healthy leg gets over used and generally becomes stronger than the injured leg. This can cause not only imbalance in the legs but also the hips and back. These imbalances might lead to knee pain (in the healthy leg) from hobbling and limping, low back and hip pain on one or both sides due to the low back muscles being forced to carry the injured leg.
This is why chronic pain is complex. There is not always a specific point in time for why a person has pain and the part of the body they have it in. There also is not a specific age at which chronic pain starts, anyone can get it. It is a myth that pain is just part of growing older.
Because of the complexity of chronic pain it is important for people who have pain to try keeping track; when did the pain start, how often, where in the body, is it sharp pain or dull aching pain, ca n the patient think of a specific event that the pain may be resulting from or have they recently recovered from an injury?
Talking about the answers to these questions with the family physician can help the patient and physician to determine if the pain is still in the acute stages or if it is or has progressed into the chronic pain stage. This would be a good time to discuss visiting a pain specialist.
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