Knowing your pain

Pain can be difficult to understand and manage everyday. Often the cause can be obvious but sometimes it isn’t. Pain is a normal response to protect you from potential danger / threat.

Acute pain: Acute pain is directly related to tissue damage such as a sprained ankle or a paper cut. Acute pain is of short duration and gradually resolves as the injured tissues heal. It can last for less than 3 months.

Persistant /Chronic pain: This is pain that continues past the expected healing time of 3 months. Persistent pain, unlike acute pain, does not (for most people) indicate on-going damage. The pain is more to do with changes in the nervous system than with an on-going injury.

Your attitudes, beliefs, and personality strongly affect your immediate experience of acute pain and response to persistent pain. Pain is influenced by your environment, memory, thoughts, feelings, lifestyle and beliefs.

We have collated some useful resources below.

If you would like to explore more... take a look at the resources below.