Pain

Pain is a normal bodily reaction towards any kind of injury or illness, designed to make the person aware of injury and to both treat the injury as well as making it clear to avoid it in the future. It is a warning sign that’ll let you know when something is wrong in your body and the absence of it indicates to you that your body has healed from the injury or illness.

The onset of pain is usually an injury or a sign of illness in the part of the body where pain is occurring. The sudden arrival of pain is known as acute pain.

Acute pain is effective in that it demands the immediate attention of the person and forces him or her to act right away. This typically prevents the pain from getting worse. The reaction to acute pain can be very simple, like the reflex action you experience when you touch a hot object with your hand jerking away immediately.

Some actions can be very complex such as resting or cooling a bone bruise, or keeping a sprained ankle elevated above the heart. The pain can sometimes become very severe and force the person to visit a physician right away.

However, pain continues for a long period of time even after its cause has died down for many people, and this is known as chronic pain syndrome. Chronic pain can go on for 6 months or even longer, and when unaddressed can lead to chronic medical conditions and major debilitating damage to your body.

The feeling of being in pain comes from a series of response messages coming from your central nervous system. An injury, whether minor or major, sends a message to your pain sensors in the form of an electrical signal that travels from one nerve to another and reaches your brain. Your brain will then process this signal and then send a message making it clear you’ve been hurt and that continuing on as you were is not a smart choice.

This signal will stop once your injury has been properly healed or rehabilitated. However, with chronic pain it becomes so that the nerve signals keep on firing to your brain even after your injury situation has been resolved.