When a pain condition continues more than 3 to 6 months, we call it chronic pain. Is this just a name change or there are real differences between acute and chronic pain. It turns out that there are many real changes that happen in our nervous system and through them our pain becomes chronic. We have many control mechanisms in our spinal cord and brain to either inhibit or facilitate pain message transportation. When pain becomes chronic, many of the inhibitory systems stop working and many facilitatory systems get activated. Some of these changes may be correctable and some may be permanent. The focus of chronic pain treatment is to reverse the correctable changes and and prevent permanent changes. Because of these changes in our nervous system we may get symptoms in areas different from our actual primary injury. For years patients would be subject of doubt and miss trust because we did not know why would their symptoms of pain be wider than their areas of injury. Now we know. So our chronic pain is real and it has a real physiological list of reasons to exist.
Don’t let anybody tell you it is only in your head, although we all perceive pain by our heads!!