Pain can be either acute or chronic. Acute pain This type of pain is generally intense and short-lived. It is how the body al ... erts a person to an injury or localized tissue damage. Treating the underlying injury usually resolves acute pain. Acute pain triggers the body’s fight-or-flight mechanism, often resulting in faster heartbeats and breathing rates. There are different types of acute pain: Somatic pain: A person feels this superficial pain on the skin or the soft tissues just below the skin. Visceral pain: This pain originates in the internal organs and the linings of cavities in the body. Referred pain: A person feels referred pain at a location other than the source of tissue damage. For example, people often experience shoulder pain during a heart attack. Chronic pain This type of pain lasts far longer than acute pain, and there is often no cure. Chronic pain can be mild or severe. It can also be either continuous, such as in arthritis, or intermittent, as with migraines. Intermittent pain occurs on repeated occasions but stops in between flares. The fight-or-flight reactions eventually stop in people with chronic pain as the sympathetic nervous system that triggers these reactions adapts to the pain stimulus. If enough cases of acute pain occur, they can create a buildup of electrical signals in the central nervous system (CNS) that overstimulate the nerve fibers. This effect is known as “windup,” with this term comparing the buildup of electrical signals to a windup toy. Winding a toy with more intensity leads to the toy running faster for longer. Chronic pain works in the same way, which is why a person may feel pain long after the event that first caused it. Describing pain There are other, more specialized ways of describing pain. These include: Neuropathic pain: This pain occurs following injury to the peripheral nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body. It can feel like electric shocks or cause tenderness, numbnes read more