It allows the body to react and prevent further tissue damage. People feel pain when a signal travels through nerve fibers to the brain for interpretation. The experience of pain is different for every person, and there are various ways to feel and describe pain. This variation can, in some cases, make it challenging to define and treat pain.
In this article, we look at the different causes and types of pain, different ways to diagnose it, and how to manage the sensation. People feel pain when specific nerves called nociceptors detect tissue damage and transmit information about the damage along the spinal cord to the brain. For example, touching a hot surface will send a message through a reflex arc in the spinal cord and cause an immediate contraction of the muscles. This contraction will pull the hand away from the hot surface, limiting further damage.
This reflex occurs so fast that the message has not even reached the brain. However, the pain message does continue to the brain.
Once it arrives, it will cause an individual to feel an unpleasant sensation — pain. The brain may also release feel-good chemicals, such as dopamine, to try to counter the unpleasant effects of pain.
Pain can be either acute or chronic. This type of pain is generally intense and short-lived. It is how the body alerts a person to an injury or localized tissue damage. Treating the underlying injury usually resolves acute pain. This type of pain lasts far longer than acute pain, and there is often no cure.
Chronic pain can be mild or severe. It can also be either continuous, such as in arthritis , or intermittent, as with migraines. Intermittent pain occurs on repeated occasions but stops in between flares.
The fight-or-flight reactions eventually stop in people with chronic pain as the sympathetic nervous system that triggers these reactions adapts to the pain stimulus.
If enough cases of acute pain occur, they can create a buildup of electrical signals in the central nervous system CNS that overstimulate the nerve fibers. Winding a toy with more intensity leads to the toy running faster for longer. Chronic pain works in the same way, which is why a person may feel pain long after the event that first caused it. There is no objective scale for identifying the type of pain, so the doctor will take a pain history.
Several systems can identify and grade pain. However, the most important factor in getting an accurate diagnosis is for the individual and the doctor to communicate as clearly as possible. When people with cognitive impairments cannot accurately describe their pain, there can still be clear indicators.
These include:. The doctor will either treat the underlying problem, if it is treatable, or prescribe pain-relieving treatment to manage the pain. Recent Examples on the Web: Verb In this romantic Lakes District in the shadow of the Alps, wistful 19th-century villas are seductively overgrown with old vines that seem to ache with stories to tell.
First Known Use of ache Verb before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a Noun before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1. Buying Guide Our team at The Usage has selected the best heating pads of Learn More About ache. Time Traveler for ache The first known use of ache was before the 12th century See more words from the same century.
From the Editors at Merriam-Webster. Style: MLA. More Definitions for ache. English Language Learners Definition of ache Entry 1 of 2. Kids Definition of ache Entry 1 of 2. Kids Definition of ache Entry 2 of 2. Medical Definition of ache Entry 1 of 3. Medical Definition of ache Entry 2 of 3. AChE abbreviation. Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? He's just aching to get even.
See synonyms for ache on Thesaurus. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Origin of ache before ; v. See pain. Words nearby ache A chain , achalasia , Achan , acharya , Achates , ache , Achebe , Achebe, Chinua , acheilia , acheiria , acheiropody.
Words related to ache anguish , misery , pang , soreness , spasm , twinge , throb , hurt , pounding , suffering , throe , pain , smart. How to use ache in a sentence As a now-firmly middle-aged person with the ache s that entails, crossovers are easy to get into and out of than low-slung cars.
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