What is chronic pain, and what can you do about it?

Chronic pain is an unfavorable, unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that is persistent, lasting weeks to years.

The three types of musculoskeletal pain include nociceptive, neuropathic, and nociplastic.

Nociceptive pain can be associated with tissue damage or injury. Examples of this kind of pain would include spraining your ankle or touching a hot stove.

Burning, stabbing, shooting, and prickling are often descriptive words for neuropathic pain.
Often people will say this pain travels or feels like nerve pain. Other diagnoses for this kind of pain include trigeminal neuralgia, diabetic neuropathy, and sciatica.

Nociplastic pain arises from no clear evidence for disease or actual tissue damage. The result of nociplastic pain is usually widespread and amplified. Fibromyalgia is an example of this type of pain.

There are a wide variety of treatments for chronic pain based on severity, level of disability, and patient preferences.

Usually one of the first treatment methods attempted includes physical therapy, exercise & stretching, stress management, and relaxation techniques.

Therapies including biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, psychotherapy, and massage are other modalities that can be explored.

Interventional therapies offered through pain management physicians and nurse practitioners have been shown to be beneficial. Their services may offer treatments such as epidurals, radio frequency ablations, joint injections, trigger point injections, and botox infiltrations. These treatments can aide in decreasing all three kinds of musculoskeletal pain and improve functional status and quality of life.

Medications like non steroidal anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers, neuropathic medications, and, if needed, opioid therapy can be initiated to help ease pain.

No matter the type of pain a person has, there are ways to help manage and treat it. You can talk to your health care provider for further guidance and recommendations.