Acute Pain.Com

We have a strange situation here: although we know almost nothing about how an individual is experiencing pain, thanks to modern medical research we can explain very well what is happening in our body when we feel pain or why we know different types of pain.

Pain reception is transmitted to the brain in a complicated process along nerves and through the spinal chord. But there are different kinds of nerves, which enable different types of pain transmission and different types of pain experience.

The first type of pain receptors are so called A Delta fibers. They measure temperature and pressure. These fibers are myelinated, which means electrically isolated somehow in the way of an electric cable and due to this isolation react very fast. A Delta fibers trigger the pull away reflex that every human being shows when suddenly hurt i.e. by a pinprick. A Delta fibers are responsible for the sensation of first, sudden sharp pain.

The second type of pain receptors is C fibers. They react about ten times slower than A Delta fibers and are not myelinated. This lack of isolation causes signals running along C fibers to give pain information to other cells along its way. C fibers react to all kinds of stimuli – thermal, mechanical and chemical – and create the sensation of slow, dull, deep and lasting pain.