What causes pain?

What causes pain?

Marc Darrow (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Joint Rehabilitation Sports Medical Center, Inc. ) gives expert video advice on: What causes pain?; How do doctors determine the source of specific pains? and more...

Pain is caused from so many different things. Some of it we actually attribute to the mind-body connection, where a person can be depressed and because of the depression, they cycle into a pain syndrome. Some pain can be chemical in nature as obviously if you have acid and you pour it on yourself, you're going to feel a burn. Pain can be thermic in nature, meaning it occurs due to heat. And it can also be mechanical in nature, such as when you have been hurt in a certain area by being touched too hard or kicked, or you have fallen down, fractured a bone, or other things of this nature. You're obviously going to feel pain in these situations because pain is the mechanism that tells us to stop doing what we're doing, take a look at it, and see if we can continue or whether we need to take care of the problem.