Pain
Pain is your body telling you that you have hurt it. This is a good thing, important when you are injured. It can also help diagnose problems with your body. Sometimes pain continues long after it's necessary. Amputees report phantom pain in the legs or arms they no longer have.
There are different kinds of pain, and describing the type is useful in diagnosis: recurring, constant, steady, knife-like, radiating, sharp, dull. Medicines that dull pain are analgesics. Those that kill all feeling are anesthetics.
Recently Answered
- Q What causes musculoskeletal pain?
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Rick Olderman, Physical TherapyMusculoskeletal pain is often due to three problems that feed each other. There are anatomical changes such as tight or weak muscles. There are biomechanical issues such as whether your leg bone (femur) is moving well in the hip socket. And there are... Full Answer
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- Q How can pain be transformative?
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Dr. Dean Ornish, Internal MedicineWe can use our pain - emotional or physical - as a catalyst to begin healing, not just curing. To me, "curing" means only getting back to the way we were before we became diseased. "Healing" is when we use our pain or illness as a catalyst to begin... Full Answer
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- Q Do people commonly experience pain near the end of life?
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Pain is a commonly reported symptom in the last few years of life, with reports of pain increasing during the final few months, according to research published in the "Annals of Internal Medicine." In the study, just over one quarter of people... Full Answer
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- Q Why do I have leg pain when I walk?
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Sore muscles can hurt when you walk, but pain can also be a symptom of poor circulation. If you have diabetes or other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, your doctor should evaluate the pain. You may have intermittent claudication... Full Answer
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- Q How often does acute pain have psychological origins?
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Pain occurs much more frequently as a consequence of tissue or nerve damage than it does because of psychological fantasy. This is particularly true of acute pain; psychogenic pain is more frequently chronic. It is also common for several sources of pain... Full Answer
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- Q How can chest pain affect a child's life?
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Chest pain in children is extremely common. In fact, it is one of the most frequent reasons a child may be referred to a cardiologist. It affects girls and boys equally. Fortunately, chest pain in children is rarely due to a heart condition, unlike... Full Answer
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- Q What is the purpose of pain?
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Believe it or not, pain can be a good thing. The nervous system triggers a sensation of pain to stop you from doing something that might cause a severe injury and to let you know that something may be wrong. In most cases, if you treat the source of the... Full Answer
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- Q What is physical pain?
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Pain is a sensation caused by a certain type of message being sent to the nervous system. Physical pain is what most people refer to when they say something hurts on their body and is associated with damage to tissues of their body. Physical pain can be... Full Answer
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- Q What is phantom pain, and how is it similar to superficial somatic pain?
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Phantom pain is pain a person feels in a body part that no longer exist. Phantom pain is usually associated with amputated limbs or digits, but can also be associated with removed soft tissue such as breasts. Although the body part is gone, the brain... Full Answer
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- Q How does my body feel pain?
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Dr. Harris McIlwain, Pain MedicineYour body has roughly twenty different nerve endings in the skin that tell you if something is hot, cold, or going to be painful. The nerve endings convey this information to the brain and spinal cord, also known as the central nervous system, areas... Full Answer
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