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A Delta fibers and C fibers are distributed very unevenly in the body, but at the same time show quite some interaction.

This allows for pain information sent to the brain to be qualified. If we are stung by a bee we immediately react, but if a tooth suddenly revolts, we don’t: we know instinctively from the type and origin of pain that it would not help in this case. So basically there are three types of pain information sent to our brain according to the pain receptors involved:

The first type of pain is called cutaneous pain, “skin pain”. Skin pain comes from the density of fast reacting nerve ends right under the skin. Skin pain is sharp, short, localized and very well defined.

The second type of pain is called somatic pain, “bodily pain”. This pain stems from the relatively lower distribution of nerve receptors deeper inside the human body that are located around tendons, bones, ligaments, blood vessels, tendons and muscles. Somatic pain is dull, slowly increasing, not precisely localized and of longer duration. We feel somatic pain after injuries like sprains or broken bones.

The third type of pain is called visceral pain, “organic pain”. Inside the organs and body cavities nerve ends are very scarcely distributed, and they produce a very slow, deep and lasting pain that in many cases is difficult to localize at all or even located at the wrong place, in a phenomenon that is called referred pain and that is explained by C fibers transmitting pain signals and on their way triggering reactions from other pain receptors that are not actually activated by the original pain signal.