The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) describes pain as a unpleasant personal experience that involves both a sensation and an emotion. We experience pain when we have an injury to our body, when we fear that an injury is impending and even in cases where there is no injury at all. In other words, pain is always personal and the person who feels the pain is the one who can best describe it.
There are several kinds of pain. The pain from injury to the muscles, tendons and ligaments or from a broken bone is different that the pain from injured nervous tissues (such as the nerves in our arms and legs, the spinal cord or the brain).This last kind of pain is called Neuropathic Pain.
Neuropathic pain is estimated to affect up to 7-8% of the general population. This means that close to 2.5 million Canadians (1 million in Ontario alone) are affected by this type of pain.
NP can be the result of numerous conditions such as: stroke; trauma to the spinal cord (a devastating injury that leaves the patient paralyzed); Multiple Sclerosis (a disease that causes inflammation to the nerves, spinal cord and brain); syringomyelia (a condition caused by cavities (holes) in the spinal cord); damage to the nerve roots after a herniated disc (not treated for long time) or after unsuccessful back surgery; brachial plexus injury (a serious injury that may leave the patient with extremely painful but weak or paralyzed and insensitive arm); pain after amputation (when the patient complains bitterly of pain in the amputated “ghost” arm); diabetic neuropathy; other neuropathies due to AIDS or treatment with cancer medications; complex regional pain syndrome (a difficult condition affecting a limb even after trivial injuries); post-herpetic neuralgia (the painful condition that follows an attack of shingles); trigeminal neuralgia; injuries to the nerves of the arms, legs or body after trauma; surgery that damages nerves (such as pain after mastectomy for cancer, cardiac bypass surgery, surgery to repair abdominal hernias or inguinal hernia), and the list goes on.
In many of the conditions listed above, pain is affecting a large number of patients. For example, pain affects 6-8% of the patients after stroke, 70% or more of the patients after spinal cord injury, 7-54% of patients with AIDS, up to 65% of patients with Multiple Sclerosis, up to 90% of patients with syringomyelia, 50-75% of patients with amputation, most patients with nerve injury after trauma, almost half of the patients with shingles who are 70 years or older, up to 25% of the women after mastectomy, and 15% of patients after cardiac bypass surgery.
NP is a debilitating and very difficult type of pain to diagnose and treat. It robs sufferers from their sleep, enjoyment of life, work and role within the family and it costs million of dollars to the health care system. To learn more about NP, what causes it and how to treat it, join www.actionontario.ca.
Please download our brochure on neuropatic pain for more information