What is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain can become progressively worse over the time or reoccur intermittently. Multiple re-injury without a proper healing process can lead to progressive chronic pain over the time. Chronic pain in general aggravated from poor posture, overuse of certain body part over the time, and unergonomic practicing at workspace can cause chronic pain over the time. chronic pain will typically reflect by having joint pain, muscle aches, and fatigue. But in certain case, they will also feel loss of stamina and flexibility, due to decreased activity and they might have mood irritability. 

Chronic pain is often describing a condition known as chronic pain syndrome (CPS). It happens when a person has symptoms beyond pain alone, like depression and anxiety which interfere with their activities of daily living. The common cause of chronic pain syndrome is arthritis or other joint problem, back pain, headache, repetitive stress injuries, fibromyalgia, nerve damage and/or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). However, the roots of CPS are both physical and mental.

Common injuries

Chronic pain is a distressing and complex representation of pain which is very common within the population which usually results from and injury or disease. However, it can be classified as a medical condition within its own category. As it is known that chronic pain can be defined as pain that last longer than the normal course of an acute injury or a recurring pain that lasts for months or even years. An article listed 4 common types of chronic pain most commonly seen in American adults, though this may not be solely limited to the American population but can possibly be generalized to most people. This is namely chronic low back pain, chronic headaches, chronic joint pains and chronic nerve pain. As low back pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal injury affecting the global population, it would only make sense that this condition will develop into chronicity for many. A study done in America measured that within 14 years, the rates of chronic low back pain has increased two-fold from 3.9% to 10.2% from the year 1992 till 2006. A study done on chronic pain with the population of Hong Kong noted that joint pain, back pain and headaches were among the common complaints of the population in Hong Kong with a 10.8% prevalence of chronic pain overall. They related the possible increase in chronic low back pain to an increase in obesity rates, depression and better education in the field resulting in more reports of such cases. Chronic headaches may not be entirely musculoskeletal related but can be related closer towards stress levels. Chronic joint pain is another common condition as it can be related to diseases that will develop through degeneration and repetitive strains on joints. Conditions like osteoarthritis with the degeneration of the cartilage leading to prolonged pain. Diseases like gout when not managed well can lead to chronicity with frequent recurrent flare-ups. Chronic nerve pain or neuropathic pain as seen with conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome which can be from chronic overuse leading to compression of the nerve in the wrist or diabetic peripheral neuropathy which is nerve damage from diabetes.