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How is Pain Experienced?

The experience of pain is different from person to person and changes all the time – even with the same person. The experience contains the physical pain itself together with the psychological (e.g. anxiety and uneasiness) and social (e.g. reporting sick) consequences.

Physical

The shear physical pain is described differently, depending on whether it is tissue pain or nerve pain. It has practical significance to be able to distinguish between the two types since the treatment may be different.

Tissue Pain

Pain from the pain sensors in bones and joints is described as deep, racking or stabbing, and the pain is located in a limited area (e.g. the shoulder or the foot).

Pain from the skin can be stabbing or burning. The stabbing pain is also called the first pain and the burning pain the second pain. If you for example hurt your finger, you first feel a stabbing pain. After 1-2 seconds, you feel a burning sensation.

Pain from the inner organs is often described as deep, penetrating and dull and in this case the pain is more widely located (e.g. pains in the entire chest or the entire stomach)

Pain in the inner organs (heart, intestine, gall bladder) is often very strong and often accompanied by fast pulse, sweating and possibly vomiting.

In the case of cancer illnesses, pulling and pressure occurs in the tissue surrounding the tumour, wherefore pain sensors send signals to the brain. That kind of tissue pain is usually described as stabbing, burning or piercing.

Common causes of tissue pain are overload, arthritis illnesses and cancer.

Nerve Pain

Pain following damage to our nervous system – e.g. after a stroke or in the case of multiple sclerosis – is described as piercing, smarting, pricking or radiating. In the case of cancer illnesses, the tumour can grow inside the nervous system and cause the same piercing pain. Typically, the pain from destroyed nerve tissue caused by diabetes is described as burning and stabbing.

Many people with nerve pain experience a hypersensitivity on a limited area of the skin. In that case, a slight touch of the skin will feel very uncomfortable – for example burning of electric.

Common causes of nerve pain are strokes, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, amputations and cancer.

Psychological conditions like mood, anxiety, joy, expectations and personality are crucial for how pain is experienced.

Psychological

During Second World War, it was documented that soldiers and civilians experienced pain differently. The civilian population needed more painkilling medication than the soldiers – even though they had the same injury. The explanation was that the wounded soldiers expected to be sent home to safety while the wounded civilians had to stay on the battlefield with the risk of more injuries. This means that the experience of pain from the same injuries are influenced by the expectation of how the future develops. In the same way, pain is experienced differently with a person struck with cancer (with the expectation of imminent death) compared to a person with arthritis (with the expectation of a long life).

Another example is the experience of headache. We all know how headache is worsened if the trouble of the daily life increases and reversely diminishes if everything is well.

Socially

Not just psychological but also social conditions are crucial for how we experience pain. Back pains have a special significance for the person who has a physically hard job compared with the person who has a sedentary job. Uncertainty regarding the working capacity in the long term can influence the experience of pain. The reduced working capacity has one significance for the economically well-to-do and another for the one without any economic security.

If you are alone without family and friends to support you, pain can be experienced particularly challengingly. It can soothe the pain to have someone to share it with.

Further reading on How serious is it?