What do you think long term pain should be ca... - Pain Concern
What do you think long term pain should be called? 'Chronic pain', 'persistent pain', or would another term be better?
If you've selected 'other' please put your preferred term for long term pain in the comments. Thank you for taking part in the poll.
Please select one:
long term pain
dibilitating pain
Kentishman, now that is a great terminology of long term pain.
long term pain is self explananatory so I find it the best phrase. The others could be short term and only temporarily debilitating or agonising.
I have had acute pain in some of my joints for several years. There needs to be a classification for chronic acute pain, caused by conditions such as osteoarthritis.
Additionally, we (as in researchers) know that people have different genetic predispositions for pain. For example they have found a gene where those with allele b get pain with osteoarthritis, whose with allele a don't have pain with osteoarthritis.
But clincians and pain support groups are constantly making patients feel that it is their fault for feeling pain, emphasising the psychosocial and lifestyle aspects. And if those don't work it must be the patient's fault for not trying hard enough.
So we also need names for genetically determined pain. It isn't all in the brain, sometimes it is all in the body.
Don't know what's wrong with "chronic". Does what it says... acute versus chronic is well established terminology all across medicine.
’Chronic Pain’ is self explanatory. It refers to long standing pain that persists (often far) beyond the usual recovery period.
incessant
constant pain?
I was in a discussion with a doctor the other day over possible gout diagnosis.I asked if gout was a chronic condition but I only got acute attacks.
She seemed to be confused over the difference. ( English may not be her first language ?). Saying I had a potential long term pain condition which had acute episodes.
I can see potential for confusion.
LTP is very easy to trot out!!🤔😅😅
I would go with ‘chronic long term pain
Long term acute pain ... LTAP
acute pain is not long term
Acute pain IS long term when a doctor misdiagnoses a patient. It happens all the time. Doctors are gas lighting people who come to see them with legitimate severe body pain and injuries. It’s easier to believe the patient has a mental health problem…..especially if scans and MRI’s don’t detect anything. Nerves cannot be imaged.
I am an example. I had a severely pinched nerve in my right lower buttock and not one of ten doctors I saw where I lived believed me. I couldn’t sit or lie down. The pain was intractable 24/7 burning 🔥 pain that prevented sleep.
I was mistreated, verbally and emotionally abused, purposely misdiagnosed, my nerve blocks were done incorrectly and I was just left poly drugged to no avail.
I got help out of province and in the US. I had to hire and pay a registered nurse consultant to get the life saving surgery I needed. No doctor in Vancouver Canada cared and not one has apologized for leaving me disabled. I almost died and the BC doctors almost got away with murder!
What person in their right mind would want to live with chronic pain that destroys every facet of their lives? No one would. I was abused and I cannot get compensated.
I'm sorry -- the words are inadequate, but I am, for what you've suffered. For what it's worth, you aren't alone in finding doctors are worse than no help. The trauma I suffered because of that does not abate.
You understand then the hopelessness one feels when doctors don’t do their jobs and neglect their patients. It should be deemed criminal.
It should be criminal, but it's not.
A doctor damaged me for life. I called several lawyers and was told since I couldn't get a diagnosis what is wrong with me -- I'm not even close to kidding -- a doctor can't have given me the wrong treatment.
It's rigged.
Agreed
Trouble with persistent, it doesn't give a description of how much pain.
Chronic pain can be short term too.
Persistent chronic pain ... Trouble is PCP is a drug abuse drug.
LTCP works too ... Long term chronic pain.
Long term pain never likely to improve?
In headache medicine, 'chronic' is only used as a label if the problem has continued for 3 months or longer. If that meaning that medicine applies in every pain context, then it is a very dry term. And, I agree it might make sense to give more clarity and meaning by adding other descriptors, such as severe, moderate, continuous, intermittent etc.
But then I guess that may cause other problems, such as who gets to decide what level of pain you are labelled with.
Or might only people with certain labels of chronic pain qualify for treatment or support, benefits, etc.
So many other things tie into the apparently simple question...
Just ticked Chronic I'd say could use them all maybe
Long term chronic pain
Short term chronic pain also exists for example a badly broken leg requiring surgery would have a period of acute pain and perhaps 6-12 months of chronic pain as it heals.
Alternatively, someone with arthritis will have pain for life. However, some will have debilitating pain, some not.
People with Gout will have acute episodes of pain related to a chronic illness.
I believe the description has to fit the individual
Life impacting pain
As with so many terms the duration cannot be stated as a "fact" when pain, surgery, successful treatments will almost certainly be a major facture. In the ongoing distant past of NOT having very long lists it was very possible to give accurate planning and outcomes. Now. that which is chro nic may become. acute which may be classed as urgent. As we no longer know how long the wait for treatment OR if treat.ents will work I believe we are in "fairy land" where no one should pin their hopes on the GP - ' The Consultant " et al. The best we can do is accept the long wait ( which we should not have to do" but it will essentially the brain banging on a out how bad it is. Who would change places with >100,00] cancer patients where ti.e IS key to their chance of recovery.
Permanent persistent pain
Personally I think the questions are inadequate. One can have a constant pain, or a pain such as you step down with your left foot, and you should have stepped right foot first. Constant fully implies, persistent pain, not sporadic. To me, chronic is "towards intolerable".
Is it though? Some people adapt their mind and body to deal with chronic pain while others can’t.
Surely. If pain is intolerable, then the person cannot do anything and would need high doses of pain medication to make it tolerable so that they can participate in the activities of daily living.
This describes acute rather than chronic pain.
It's all semantics and we are all using words with different meanings attached to them.
I see "acute" as sudden and severe.
"Chronic" as long-term and severe.
Both in a temporal sense. ie - defined by length of time experienced.
I think some of the conflicting views may be understood by this difference.
On a lighter note- my grandchild noted that acute pain must be "small and cuddly".
I just love the innocence of young people.💚
I agree that it is all semantics but disagree with your interpretation of “chronic “ as longterm and severe.
I have bilateral osteoarthritis and inflammatory arthritis in my knees.
The left knee being the most painful.
In fact so acutely painful that I could not walk. I was treated with opiates until surgery was performed.
Post surgery, paracetamol was enough to control my pain.
Two years later I have chronic pain which is different in intensity in both knees, none of which could be described as severe. Nevertheless, the pain is debilitating. I cannot kneel nor can I walk very far.
For me the term “chronic” is not specific enough therefore, in my opinion one should not be putting words into the mouths of patients rather listen to the individual description of their pain.
'Long term chronic pain'.
If the pain lasts longer than 3 months, the descriptor changes to chronic.
There is no need for sarcasm this is a friendly debate and you have no idea about the level of understanding that people have. This is an inclusive group where everyone is welcome, regardless of their level of understanding.
For consistency with other health conditions 'chronic' covers pain which occurs without pause for greater than 3 months. Before that it's acute or just pain if not. Anything else causes some confusion. Other examples are chronic sinusitis, chronic fatigue, chronic depression et al.
Permanent Pain!
Chronic persistent pain 😞
Continuous PAIN
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- Pain Concern Admin
long term
I feel like I can't quite vote yet. it depends on what someone is describing, surely?I had a cute little pudgie sticky outty stomach when I waslittle and I also did gymnastics really easily. but then it turns out lumbar lordosis might be cute, but it can cause some pretty bad backache. so at seventeen, I ended up seeing the university chiropractor so I could keep working through the throbbing low back and intermittent sciatic nerve bite and keep my job. the aches i didn't mind before didn't take kindly to 8 hrs behind a desk. I've been doing exercises and trying to plant my feet right and tilting my hips and strengthening my core since then hoping to find ease, but I can't get it manageable. now in my fifties, I just had cauda equina syndrome and surgery, lost most feeling in the, ah, nether regions (oh, wait, anti-pain!) and my left leg. but it is a pain to step wrong and need to change my clothes more often and del with neuropathy. and there's still stenosis and squashed nerves,; the sugerí was just for the emergency bit. so that's a long time. but what is it that's chronic. the condition is. the pain is when things go haywire or I fall down.
different from that, I started getting hip pain in 2016. it's kinda burning, chalkboard pain, but touchable. my first encounter with rheumy, she said they couldn't see me timely fashion, but by the time I did see them, there was enough other going on that the hip didn't get a look in. a little later when I stopped being able reach over my head, the gp said this seemed like polymyalgia rheumatica, and prescribed steroids, and re referred to rheumy. it took eleven months to get picked back up, and then I was told I needed to wait because I had to come off the steroids first cuz they wouldn't be able to diagnose anything. between the rheumy and the specialist nurse, the thoughts are that the xray shows no space left in my shoulder joints, impingement, not pma, and that because of where and other things, hip is likely bursitis. which is partly why the steroids worked so well for both. either if these two might have been worked on and cleared in three months from start. if timely fashion was the fashion. the hip has been almost eight years and the shoulders nearly four. my sleep is affected. my mood. the arthritis. my recovery from surgery. I walk strangling on the pained hip on one side and the numb leg on the other. my knee has suffered from that. there's more but this is too long.
and everybody will have their own details.
I want to know what 'chronic' and 'long term' pain technically describe now before getting worked up about changing them.
I'm not grouching at anybody. I want to communicate well, but sometimes there just needs to be more ticky boxes than provided. it's nice to get the chance to say so! sorry for any typing errors. I'm on my phone. 💪🧑🦲🤳
Long term pain
This is a tricky one. Whilst chronic would accurately describe the pain I suffer on occasions from my lower back (2 x prolapsed discs) and left hip (osteoarthritis) it does not do justice to the phantom pain I suffer a number of times a week. It is usually in the early hours and often makes me want to scream out so I shout 'F' words! The problem is many professionals do not understand it and one even said your leg can't hurt because it is not there"! Eff'ing moron. :Phantom pain has been known about since people started surviving amputations centuries ago but is very much a Cinderella of the health care sector. The recommended medication gives me no relief!
I have a few words of my own for that sob. Yes. Moron will do. Moron with a degree? Yup. Still moron.
Any professional dealing with pain should know that pain goes from the part presenting with something wrong, up to a receptor in the brain. The more a person suffers pain then the more receptors there are and the more easily alerted. Somehow, because I am not a specialist in neuroscience and can’t explain it, but the habit of experiencing pain somewhere gets carried on after the pain causing limb has gone. The nerves where the limb has been removed keep on firing. Or something like that. I do hope a knowledgeable doctor/specialist has been able to help.
I like long term pain- simple.
Maybe lifelong because it’s not going to go away, just eased a little with meds.
Enduring
All of the above and then some. The rest are mostly four-letter words, so I'll leave them to the imagination. 😬😭
i like the term kentishman posted ? deliberating pain. because the word did enter my head when reading the article 👍
Chronic, persistent pain.
Of longterm and chronic, chronic is most descriptive, I would like to find a word meaning it is never going to get better as is the case with me. Even with bad post operative pain from a shoulder replacement I knew that was going to prove. However, with the chronic pain from my arthritis I know it will never go away and will always need medication to reduce it. Meds don’t eliminate the pain but just take the unbearable edge off.
I looked up synonyms for chronic and the best I can come up with is “deep-seated lifelong’ pain. It gets across the point of it never ever going to get better.
Hi. I am so sorry for all that you are going through and understand completely which is why I wrote chronic. I had Endometriosis year's ago and had 3 major and 3 minor ops which have caused adhesions. Painful but I managed to have a life and more importantly, dog's! 6 years ago I had lung cancer which was ignored by our Pain Clinic for 15 months during which time I became very ill culminating in Pneumonia because nothing was done about the tumour. During that time my adorable dog died, I now have Osteoarthritis, 2 wedge fractured vertebrae with splinters of bone digging into nerves, Osteoporosis, a 10 cm hernia, RLS ++ and cannot have a dog because I can't walk far and of course, walking helps Osteoporosis. The medical profession where we live are appalling and I don't mean the Nurses who are wonderful but the NHS is on it's knee's and cannot cope with the amount of people who have moved here.Ooops ! Soapbox time! Sorry! Take care and I hope you find some relief from your pain. I find that Arnica cream helps my hands . Might be worth a try ?!
All the best,
Danni
Danni54 I am so sorry all the health problems you are having. Chronic really is the best one word description to cover all the long term pain. Pain is not an easy condition to deal with even for the top specialists. I have a look on YouTube now and again to get anything new worldwide. They try off label anti depressants and anti convulsants to good effect as well as the opioids and anti inflammatories. My problem which must be shared by many is that with taking an anticoagulant I can’t take an anti inflammatory. If I could add say a Naproxen to my codeine during a flare up it would really help. Paracetamol, though not much help on its own does work with other pain killers to increase their effectiveness. I do use Voltarol gel which is anti inflammatory but seems to be allowed if not taken internally. I have used Arnica too. I do hope that somewhere among all the complications of pain meds you find some relief and especially a doctor who knows their way around them and is compassionate to your needs. Very best wishes. xx
Thank you so much. This Forum and people like you is what is keeping me going though I am in bed today because the fracture's are so painful. It's not like me to take to my bed and I have been fighting everything so hard since the lung cancer but this pain is making me feel sick and I'm just exhausted. My Father was an incredibly brave man so I keep thinking that he would keep fighting and have his voice in my head! I hope, so much, that you get relief. Take care please.
Best wishes and hugs,
Danni x
Chronic life limiting pain. It completely impacts my quality of life, as it does for us all, so yes it is life limiting.
there is no treatment or cure for my chronic 24/7 pain caused by antibiotic Ciprofloxacin!
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