A person experienced severe wrist and hand pain that prevented typing and sometimes required weeks away from work. Multiple x-rays, MRIs and a rheumatism test returned normal results and failed to identify a cause. Physical therapies including osteopathy and acupuncture provided little relief. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines chronic pain as pain on most days or every day for more than three months and designates pain that significantly disrupts daily life as high-impact chronic pain. Severe chronic pain often drives individuals to pursue a wide range of treatments and specialist consultations.
This article comes to you a little later than DW's Science team had planned. The day I was originally supposed to write about the connection between chronic pain and antidepressants, my hands and wrists hurt so much, I couldn't type for longer than a few minutes at a time. Ah, the irony. Thankfully, the pain mostly retreated over the course of a weekend.
In the past, I've had to take time off work for weeks as typing, or any activity that involved using my hands, became nigh impossible. As for the source of that pain? That's a mystery none of the many doctors I have seen over the years have been able to solve. But my case is common: While we don't know the exact number of people living with chronic pain globally, in the so-called Western world, roughly 20% of adults deal with it.
The IASP defines chronic pain as "a condition in which an individual experiences pain on most days or every day for more than three months." If the pain significantly impacts your daily life, such as when you cannot cook meals, play your favorite sport or write an article anymore, IASP classifies the condition as "high-impact chronic pain". To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video When chronic pain is so bad, you'll try almost anything
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