There are two broad categories of pain – acute and chronic. Acute is a type of pain you feel an injury or surgery and lasts for a limited time. Chronic pain is any pain that lasts over six months. The medical profession breaks down pain into four categories. The first is Nociceptive pain. Your body is full of nociceptors. Nociceptors send signals to the brain from all sorts of injuries. Nociceptive pain is further broken down into visceral or somatic. Visceral pain occurs as a result of injuries to your internal organs. Somatic is the usual kind of pain you feel when you cut yourself or burn yourself etc. Neuropathic pain is the last type of pain. Neuropathic pain is caused by either the dysfunction of the nervous system or damage to the nervous system.
Neuropathic pain is something I’m very familiar with because of the damage to my spine. It comes in many forms, but the one that drove me crazy was the feeling of getting an electrical shock. The damage to my spine starts in the lumbar region and goes to the end of the spine. When I first experienced it, I didn’t know what it was. Shaving in the morning, I would tip my chin up to shave my neck, and it felt like someone had applied a cattle prod to the back of my legs. My reaction could cause me to fall. It was explained that tipping my chin up changed the length of my spine, doing something to the nerves in the spine. That’s been has been replaced by either a burning sensation or a stabbing sensation.
I don’t define pain with all of these divisions medical people make. I prefer real pain and fake pain. Real pain responses to simple things like aspirin and acetaminophen and heavy-duty things like opiates. Fake pain does not. Fake pain can come from all sorts of things, but in my case, it only because both the lower part of my left leg has no feeling left. I have broken toes on my left foot and did not know it until the toe turned black and blue and swelled up. Since I couldn’t feel anything, I couldn’t understand why I would have pain. The best explanation I got, or at least something I can understand is that the brain is looking for signals coming from the left foot, but none do because of the damage to my spine. When it can’t find any signals coming from my left foot, it makes up its signals in the form of pain. Some drugs help deal with this fake pain.
I’m sure you’re asking, “Why this post on pain?” It’s on my mind simply because the pain has been bad for the last few weeks. The good news is it is a real pain. It responds to all forms of pain relievers. I also have a slight bit of feeling in my left foot. They say nerves regenerate at a millimeter per year. I guess if I live to be 150, my foot will feel normal again.
