People typically experience two types of pain:
Acute pain: Pain that occurs when you’re injured, when you have surgery, or when you have swelling (inflammation). Tissues become damaged, causing nociceptors to send pain signals to the brain. Acute pain usually resolves as the injury heals.
Chronic pain: Pain that continues over a long period of time. Chronic pain may result from nerve damage or from conditions like fibromyalgia, cancer, or inflammatory bowel disease.
Acute pain can sometimes turn into chronic pain, Driscoll says. She uses a broken wrist as an example. “There’s an amount of time we expect there will still be pain,” she says. “When pain continues 3 months beyond what we consider reasonable, we consider that chronic pain.” According to a 2019 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 20.4% of U.S. adults experienced chronic pain. A little over 7% of adults had pain that kept them from work or activities (known as high-impact chronic pain). Chronic pain was highest in people over age 65.