A guide to the most common types of pain and how to seek help.

While pain does not feel the same to everyone, it’s important to describe and discuss your pain with your healthcare provider in order to find the best treatment moving forward. Here are the most common types of pain along with brief descriptions to help get the conversation started with a healthcare professional.

• Acute Pain – Pain that typically lasts for a short period of time. The pain can be mild and last for a few moments or may be severe and last for weeks or months. Acute pain is usually a result of soft tissue damage and gradually resolves with treatment as the tissue heals.
•   Bone Pain– Bone pain is extreme tenderness, aching, or other discomfort in one or more bones. It differs from muscle and joint pain because it’s present whether you’re moving or not. The pain is commonly linked to diseases that affect the normal function or structure of the bone.
• Breakthrough Pain – A sudden increase in pain that may occur in individuals who already have chronic pain from an existing condition. Breakthrough pain usually lasts for a short period of time.
• Chronic Pain – Pain that lasts more than a few months and can become progressively worse. This type of pain can outlast the usual healing process and often limits an individual’s ability to fully function.
• Joint Pain – discomfort, pain or inflammation arising from any part of a joint — including cartilage, bone, ligaments, tendons or muscles. Most commonly, however, joint pain refers to arthritis or arthralgia, which is inflammation or pain from within the joint itself.
• Muscle Pain – Muscle aches, or myalgia, are extremely common. Because there is muscle tissue in nearly all parts of the body, this type of pain can be felt practically anywhere.
• Nerve Pain – or neuropathic pain, is a type of chronic pain that occurs when nerve fibers themselves might be damaged, dysfunctional or injured. These damaged nerve fibers send incorrect signals to other pain centers. The impact of a nerve fiber injury includes a change in nerve function both at the site of injury and areas around the injury.
• Referred Pain – Pain experienced at a site other than the origin. Referred pain is the result of a network of interconnecting sensory nerves. This network supplies many different tissues. When there is an injury at one place in the network, this pain can be interpreted in the brain to radiate nerves. And can give pain elsewhere in the related areas of the network.
• Phantom Pain – Pain that feels like it’s coming from a part of the body that is no longer there.
• Soft Tissue Pain – Acute pain usually resulting from a soft tissue injury such as a sprain, strain, a one-off blow resulting in a contusion or overuse of a particular part of the body.

Experiencing the pain types above can be debilitating and can often drastically change your quality of life. If you’re experiencing one or more of these types of pain or if you feel that the type of pain you’re experiencing is not listed, contact our expert staff to schedule a consultation today. Our team of double board certified doctors take a methodical approach towards eliminating pain and getting you back to living a pain-free life. So, Got Pain? Schedule your consultation today.