DrLamb.com

Up

Email Dr. Lamb

Click on this 3 minute movie link for an overview of the Lamb Program For Stretching

Dr. Blair Lamb, MD recommends

Get Healthy!

Stay Healthy!

Types of Pain

What Types of Pain Exist?

There are probably as many types of pain as there are people in the world, however, there are generally a relatively small number of common pain problems. There will be obvious crossover in these categories. Classically, the first manner in which we group pain disorders is by time or duration. The three subgroups are acute, subacute and chronic pain.

• Acute pain is simply pain that comes and goes relatively quickly in about two weeks or less. Common examples include a simple burn, an infection, a scratch etc. The healing and pain time is usually about two weeks. In a nut shell, the person gets better quickly.
• Subacute pain is really acute pain, but lasts a little longer- up to about three months. Common examples are a simple fractured bone, simple and temporary arthritis or joint swelling or even a prolonged infection. However, in the end the person gets better.
• Chronic pain is the last and probably the largest and most significant group because the pain may never go away. Chronic pain is usually described as pain lasting more than three months. It can come and go and increase or decrease in intensity. The most important aspect of chronic pain is that it probably will not be "cured" unless the source of the pain is found. This is not always easy because it takes a very knowledgeable physician to track the pain source and an even more astute physician to fix the problem. Some pain disorders cannot be fixed and the person needs to be helped to "live with the problem" at a pain management clinic. A pain treatment clinic is different and a relatively new concept. A pain treatment clinic attempts to resolve the pain source whenever possible by new emerging technologies. These technologies will be discussed in part later. First, I need to discuss some of the uncommon causes of chronic pain that should be ruled out before we discuss the common causes. 

  ---

What is Myofascial Pain and Neuropathy?

Myofascial pain (or MFP for short) can be directly translated as the pain of muscle and tendons. Neuropathy is simply a pain or disease of part or the whole nerve. Both however, are so much more. It also includes the medical problems and pain syndromes that are caused by these muscle and nerve problems. 

Conditions such as tension and migraine headache, carpal tunnel syndrome or pain and numbness in the wrist, ulnar neuritis or pain and tingling in the little fingers or most disc diseases of the spine such as herniated discs, osteoarthritis of the hands, feet, arms, legs and spine are included. It also includes most tendonitis and bursitis, chronic fatigue, many sleep disorders and much more. 

Virtually every person and animal on the planet will suffer from the complications of muscle dysfunction or MFP in one form or another and most will begin with early symptoms by 30 years of age. 

In order to understand how an abnormal muscle can cause a headache or arthritis, we must also explore some of the new ideas in muscle technology. These principles of muscle dysfunction or MFP need be understood, as they change how we see and understand the origins of pain.