Chronic Pain

The startling facts about chronic pain.  There's a good chance at some point in your life you'll experience chronic pain:

  • 117 million American adults are affected by chronic pain
    • more than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined
  • 33% of people reporting pain describe it as "debilitating, severe,  and impacting their daily activities
  • There are two types of chronic pain
    • Nociceptive pain
    • Neuropathic pain
  • 85% of people will experience lower back pain in their life
  • Back pain is the most common reason for reduced mobility in people under the age of 45
  • Approximately 32% of people over the age of 45 have reported lower back pain in the past 3 months
  • 66% of people report depression-like symptoms as a result of their chronic pain
  • Chronic pain costs U.S. businesses over $61 billion in lost productivity

The following chronic pain treatment options are available:

  • Oral medications
  • Rehabilitation
  • Interventional therapies
  • Neuroablative surgery
  • Corrective surgery
  • Behaviour modification

Widespread Pain

Pain characterized by no previous or existing injuries, and often without cause.  Widespread pain is not localized to any specific region of the body and can move or spread from area to area.

Pain can exist on one side of the body, left or right, but can also exist above or below the waist.  The pain can be in more than one place at a time.  A common area of pain for Fibromyalgia is in the shoulders and neck area. Widespread pain is the most common symptom of Fibromyalgia but can be attributed to other unrelated conditions that also have the patient suffer from non-localized pain.

Pain "All Over"

Many fibromyalgia patients describe their widespread pain as existing all over their body.  Pain is often worse in the mornings and can improve throughout the day until the evening where it once again increases. Some Fibromyalgia sufferers report pain consistently throughout the day. The pain can most often include shoulder, neck, back, hip, knee and foot pain, but pain can exist in all parts of the body.

Pain and Activity

Pain may increase during or as a result of stress, life situations that create anxiety and physical activity such as exercise, work and sport. Other stressors can include loud sounds, bright lights, differences in temperature such as hot and cold, bathing, lying down and other seemingly small tasks or differences in surroundings.

Pain can be characterized as:

  • deep tissue pain
  • pain that radiates
  • tender points and areas
  • shooting pain
  • spiking pain
  • dull pain
  • aching areas