What Is Pain And How To Manage It?

What Is Pain?

Pain is familiar to each of us - we have all felt it at some point, sensed it. Pain is a complex process controlled by the nervous system. 

An external stimulus causes a signal in the receptors, which is transmitted through the spinal cord to the brain. As a result, we feel pain. That is, the process is responsible for our well-being and protects our health from unwanted reactions.

Types Of Pain

Nociceptive Pain

Nociception is the irritation of a pain receptor. This is the pain we feel when we are pricked. That is, it is mechanical pain, pulling, aching sensations in the area of ​​damage. 

Feeling such pain, a person easily determines its localization. An example of nociceptive pain is also a burn, when tissues and pain receptors are damaged, but there is no damage to the conductive pathways.

Neuropathic Pain

It is associated with damage to the structures that conduct pain. For example, you hit your foot or elbow and felt shooting pain and goosebumps. It is difficult to imagine any one type of pain in isolation, it is most often a mixture. 

This type of pain includes postherpetic neuralgia, when there are no manifestations of damage to pain receptors, but there is damage to the conduction system.

Psychogenic Pain

According to the WHO definition, this is pain associated with the emergence of emotional conflict or psychological problems, which are sufficient to conclude that they are the main cause of pain.

How To Relieve Pain?

Pain management has always been a pressing issue. To prescribe effective pain relief, a doctor must understand the causes of pain, correctly assess its intensity, and the mechanisms of its occurrence. There are different ways to get rid of pain or significantly reduce it, 

However, the most effective way to relieve inflammation and pain is blockades. This is a direct "delivery" of an anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving drug..

Therapeutic Blockade

It is a method of pain relief, in which the drug is "delivered" directly to the source of pain under navigation. The injected drug remains in the pain center for 7-10 days, achieving the maximum anti-inflammatory effect, which can eliminate pain for a long time.

A doctor may prescribe a therapeutic blockade for the following pathologies:

• Degenerative-dystrophic diseases of the spine

• Myofascial pain syndrome

• Neuritis and neuralgia, etc.

If 20-25 years ago blockades were used only in extreme cases, when the pain was almost unbearable, now it is a common procedure. In the USA and Europe, blockade is considered the "gold standard" of anti-inflammatory therapy in neurology and orthopedics.

Now blockades are considered not only as a means of relieving acute pain, but also as a method of treating inflammation and relieving pain that does not respond to basic treatment methods or has been bothering for more than three months.

The blockade procedure itself is quite fast - it is an injection under navigation, which allows "delivering" the medicine directly to the source of pain. The injected drug is in the pain center for 7-10 days, achieving the maximum anti-inflammatory effect, capable of eliminating pain for a long time.

The effect after the blockade occurs quickly and guarantees relief or a significant reduction in painful sensations. 

However, in order to consolidate the result obtained, rehabilitation is needed: physiotherapy, exercise therapy, lifestyle changes.