Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a largely under-treated and misunderstood disease that affects millions of people worldwide. It is often defined as moderate to severe pain that persists for one or more months longer than the expected recovery phase following an injury, surgery, or a specific disease. Many conditions can cause chronic pain, and the challenge of treating such pain has led to a medical specialty called pain medicine.

Difficult to Treat

Chronic pain can be difficult to treat because it varies greatly from person to person, even among patients with the same diagnosis. Treating chronic pain is also complicated by the fact that it can change—not just over time, but from day to day and hour to hour. It may also change according to a person's activity, mood, stress level, and general health.

This type of pain takes its toll on health-care resources, the economy, and the lives of people who suffer from it. More than half of these people are partially or totally disabled. In fact, chronic pain disables more people than cancer and heart disease combined.