Acute and chronic pain conditions

Acute and chronic pain conditions

Acute pain serves to alert us that something is wrong. It usually has an acute cause, such as a cut or a dental infection. Pain is considered chronic if it lasts longer than three months – it doesn’t need to have an acute external cause. Chronic pain syndrome is regarded as an independent disease and is associated with central nervous system changes. This also includes Neuropathies – Nerve pain. They result from a dysfunction of the nerves. Causes can include: diabetes, nerve injuries (accidents, injuries), infections (shingles), central nervous system diseases (MS, stroke), tumors and cancer, alcohol abuse, genetic diseases.

Symptoms include, for example, burning pain, electrifying sensations, numbness or tingling, hypersensitivity. Depending on the cause of pain, diagnostics may include ultrasound, CT, MRI, EMG, and lab tests, in addition to medical history and clinical examination.

Therapy: Evidence-based approaches to chronic pain include multimodal pain therapy – a cross-disciplinary and method-integrating treatment. Here, various treatment approaches – from medication and physiotherapy to psychological therapy and neuromodulation – have positive synergistic effects on the pain syndrome.