Acute and chronic pain
Acute pain is mild pain or severe pain that lasts for small moments like minutes, hours, or weeks. It can as well last for a maximum of six months. Acute pain tends to be sharp and severe and cause a high level of pain to the patient. Chronic pain, on the other hand, refers to long-lasting and ongoing suffering that tends to last for more than six months. It is a pain that can continue even after the illness or fracture that caused it had healed in this case, there is a tendency of pain signals to remain active in the nervous system for many months or years.
Reasons for acute pain
Several reasons can make a patient experience acute pain. One of them is the physical injuries in the body, especially in the case of accidents. These may result from exposure of the body tissues, breaking of bone, or impact of the fragile body parts. Acute pain can also be experienced by natural causes like labor and childbirth that women experience in the process of pregnancy. Other reasons for the severe pain may involve an injury or malfunction of the internal body organs or systems such as heart attack or even dental issues in a person. These pains tend to reduce the short period or immediately. Such injuries or fractures have been cured.
Acute pain is joint in the day to day activities of humans. They result from the usual daily activities that stress the body. For instance, after a high level of body exercise, the pain that produces from the fractures of the body tissues is acute. A person may also experience acute pain, such as headaches due to an infection attack or due to an overworked body. It happens during normal injuries such as heating oneself with hummer, to any tool. Such pains are the immediate response of the body to stress that the pain receptors in the nerve system can detect. Acute pain may also come from mental illnesses like depression or stress because of headaches.
Reasons for chronic pain
Chronic pain is associated with multiple causes in the daily lives of humans. For instance, chronic back pain that is experienced from the lower back is always a result of injury or presence of conditions like osteoporosis, arthritis, or the normal body wear and tear. Chronic headache, on the other hand, is experienced due to tension caused by stress, wrong sleeping, or fatigue. It may also be to eye strain. A clatter headache is caused by blood vessel enlargement in the head. Chronic joint pains bay occur as a result of tendinitis, repetitive motion injury, bursitis, and other autoimmune disorder that result from swelling of joint spaces. The patients are likely to receive such pains for some time those last more than six months. Even though they may not happen every time, they are likely to experience for some days every month. Other causes of chronic pain may result from chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and non-healing wound in the body.
Separating chronic pain from acute pain becomes the main goal of a doctor. Chronic pain may be an indication of the presence of a long-lasting disorder that requires more intervention. Acute pains, on the other hand, are pain caused by immediate illnesses or injuries. They require different approaches to treat and maintain since they are presented distinctly to the patient.