Let’s get started by asking you some questions:

1. Do you have pain currently or have you within the past 6 months? 
2. How long has your pain been going on?
3. What is the difference between acute and chronic pain?
4. What are some things in your life that affect your pain?
5. What are some things you can do to manage your pain? 
6. Have you heard of mindfulness?

Some of the things I want you to take away from this:

• Understand the difference between acute and chronic pain
• Know how lifestyle factors influence pain and ways that you can manage pain other than medication
• And finally a new method for managing pain, called mindfulness

We’ll start with the definition of pain:

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage.

• Let’s break that down:
  • Pain is an unpleasant experience. That we all know.
  • This experience is not only the sensation of pain, but also has an emotional component.  
  • Pain can be caused by actual tissue damage, or just the threat of possible tissue damage.  I’ll explain that a little further…

Pain is a normal human experience. 

• When we step on a rusted nail with our barefoot, we need to know about it, so we can take care of it.  

• The nervous system works like an alarm system and sends a message to the brain.  The brain tells us that something is wrong in our foot and we can decide what to do about it.

• Once we have done something: like take the nail out, get a tetanus shot, put on a bandaid, the alarm gradually calms down.  That way it’s ready to warn us of another nail in the future.

• • The pain in this situation is called acute pain.  
    • It’s a temporary alarm system that alerts our body to take action to protect itself.  
    • This is how your system should function normally.
    • Acute pain resolves with healing, and should go away within the first 3 months.

However, in about 1 in 4 people, the alarm system does not calm down.  It stays extra sensitive.  

• • This is what we call chronic pain.  
    • • Chronic pain lasts longer than 3 months and is not normal because chronic pain does not have a purpose.  
      • There is no more damage to the tissue for us to take care of.  
      • But, our alarm system hasn’t calmed back down, so we still feel like something is wrong.  
      • This is a big reason why people still experience pain once their initial injury has healed. 
      • And it begins to affect other aspects of their life. 

Take a look at the image at the bottom of the first page.  

This helps explain how pain that lasts longer than 3 months can lead to other problems.

• Initially, acute pain comes on immediately after injury and is due to tissue damage.  
  • Acute pain goes away once the tissue has healed, within the first 3 months.  

• If the pain is still there around 3 months, it can start to cause other problems.  
  • In the definition of pain, we said it also has an emotional component.  This emotional component is what can cause people to have trouble sleeping and fear of movement.    
  • When people are afraid to move, they move less, which can lead to muscle weakness.  

• When pain continues even longer, it can lead to even more problems—such as depression, inactivity, and weight gain.  
  • This has a lot to do with the alarm system that won’t calm down. 
  • Before the pain, the alarm system had lots of tolerance for activity, but now that its extra sensitive, there is less tolerance.  
  • Before, someone may have been able walk for one hour before they felt pain, but now the sensitive alarm system goes off after 5 minutes. 
    • This is due to chronic pain.

So, we talked about some things that chronic pain can lead to, but pain itself is also influenced by many factors. 

Keep reading about understanding pain by clicking the ChoosePT link below: