WHAT IS PAIN?
There are two types of pain -- acute and chronic.
Acute pain is like a warning signal that there is some kind of infection, irritation, or injury. An example of acute pain is if you were to put your hand on a hot stove and you feel the discomfort and move your hand away. Medical treatments alone are usually enough to help acute pain. This is the most common and basic kind of pain.
Chronic pain may or may not be an indication of tissue infection or injury. If the pain is originally due to an injury, it is because the pain stays even after the injury has been healed. Also, it can have a continuing origin such as cancer, nerve damage, arthritis, etc. Chronic pain opposes the body's capability to repair itself. With chronic pain, usually medical procedures are not soley enough to help.
This is a drawing I did while I was having a panic attack. When they were really bad,
sometimes my dad would just throw a notebook and pencil in front of me and
make me draw, even though it was always the last thing I wanted to do.
Alerts from our body to our brain are what tells us that we are in pain. When the pain or injury is healed, generally the alerts are stopped and that is the body's instinctual regulation routine. However, if we have chronic pain, the signals that are telling the brain we are feeling pain stay stimulated, even if the injury is healed.
