WE UNDERSTAND PAIN

October 04, 2021

Your assessment and treatment will include a differential diagnosis of the type and cause of your pain. It will combine a programme of hands on treatment and preventative advice to tackle the problem in hand, and to prevent it from re- occurring.

There are many types of pain:

Neuropathic Pain is caused by damage or disease that affects the nervous system itself. It can occur due to direct injury to the nerve (e.g. diabetic peripheral neuropathy, cut nerves, post-stroke). Alternatively, it can be affected by a virus (e.g. shingles).

Nociceptive Pain occurs when you injure a structure, e.g. a muscle tear or a broken bone.  Nerve endings in the damaged tissue detect a problem and initiate pain signals that are transferred through your nerves to the brain via the spinal cord. Your brain interprets the signals as pain.

Just to complicate things a little more, there are two types of nociceptive pain: somatic pain and radicular pain.

Somatic (cellular) Pain is felt at the site of the injury and is caused by the injured structures, e.g. muscles and joints sending pain signals up through your spinal cord and then to your brain.

Radicular (referred) Pain initiates from irritation or compression of nerves often as they leave the spinal cord, for example, from a bulging or flattened disc or inflamed facet joints. Nerves can also be irritated as they pass through tight muscle or facia. Radicular pain is referred down the distribution of the pinched nerve e.g sciatica.

The more pinched a nerve becomes, the more likely you are to experience more complex symptoms such as muscle weakness, numbness, pins and needles or loss of reflexes in the distribution of the pinched nerve.

Acute Pain vs Chronic Pain

Acute pain is associated with a new onset. It is generally associated with an injury or inflammation. Treatment is aimed a resolving the inflammation in a timely manner and producing tissue healing with the correct length, strength and dynamic quality expected of that specific structure.

Chronic pain is persisting pain that has lasted over three months. Interestingly, chronic pain is not always related to damaged tissue. Chronic pain differs from acute pain and can perhaps be termed as  “brain pain”. It can occur when pain and other sensations such as touch or movement are felt and interpreted as pain because the brain and spinal cord have become sensitised by persistent pain signals. Treatment is aimed more holistically looking at sleep, diet, pain control, exercise and graded exposure to painful activities.

We understand pain. Seek help from an expert. Your body is our specialism.