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Types of Pain
There are many ways to classify pain, we will look at one of the simpler ones: classification according to neural mechanism.
Causes of pain can be classified into two main types - nociceptive and neuropathic. Nociceptive pain is caused by stimulation of nerve endings, neuropathic pain by nerve injury. Patients will often have more than one type of pain, and may have a mixture of the two types.
The table below gives examples of each type, and typical characteristics of each pain type.
| Pain Type | Example | Characteristics / Description |
Nociceptive |
||
| Visceral | Liver capsule Pain |
Sharp / stabbing / ache |
| Somatic | Bone pain | Deep/ aching / "like toothache" / "gnawing" |
| Muscle spasm | Cramp | cramp, spasm, achey, intermittent |
| Neuropathic | ||
Nerve Injury
|
neuroma, brachial plexus infiltration |
burning / stabbing / "pins and needles" |
|
Spinal cord compression | numbness / weakness / tight chest pain / |
|
post herpetic neuralgia | cutting / stabbing / shooting / burning |
| Sympathetically maintained | chronic post surgical pain | burning (superficial), arterial distribution |
Treatment and response may vary greatly according to pain type, we will cover this in more detail later on.