Pain exists on a scale from a minor irritation to excruciating suffering. Pain can be emotional, imagined or physical.
Chronic pain is an epidemic in the United States.
It is estimated that 35 to 40 million Americans suffer from intractable pain. According to Dr. C. David Tollison, few medical problems are more complex and perplexing. Individuals typically have suffered through several years of agony, undergone two or more failed surgeries for pain relief, are restricted in their jobs if not totally unable to work, take various and multiple medications for pain, experience chronic sleep disturbance and marital and family dysfunction, suffer depression and emotional distress, and are physically and psychologically depleted. Annual expenditures for the management of chronic pain have been estimated at over 65 billion dollars. This can be compared to approximately 30 billion dollars expended on alcoholism.