What is the mechanism of referred pain?
The referred pain occurs because of multiple primary sensory neurons converging on a single ascending tract. When the painful stimuli arise in visceral receptors the brain is unable to distinguish visceral signals from the more common signals that arise from somatic receptors.
How is visceral pain referred?
Visceral pain is diffuse, difficult to localize and often referred to a distant, usually superficial, structure. It may be accompanied by symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, changes in vital signs as well as emotional manifestations. The pain may be described as sickening, deep, squeezing, and dull.
Is referred pain nociceptive or neuropathic?
The radiating component of radicular pain is technically “referred pain.” This type of “referred pain” is not a nociceptive process, it is neuropathic, even if momentary. Pain with such a specific distribution seems unlikely to even be central.
Is visceral pain referred pain?
The neurophysiological convergence of visceral and somatic afferent inputs to the CNS is thought to underlie referred visceral pain, where noxious stimulation of viscera triggers pain referred to somatic sites (33, 34).
What is the difference between visceral and referred pain?
Definition. Referred pain is pain perceived in a region innervated by nerves other than those that innervate the source of the pain (Merskey and Bogduk 1994). Visceral referred pain is explicitly Visceral Nociception and Pain that becomes referred.
What is the best example of visceral pain?
Visceral pain occurs when there is damage or disruption to internal organs and tissues. Causes include the following: injuries to internal organs, such as the gallbladder, intestines, bladder, or kidneys. damage to the core muscles or abdominal wall.
Is referred pain somatic or visceral?
Pain can be referred by deep somatic or by visceral structures. Myofascial pain syndrome is a typical syndrome characterized by referred pain from deep somatic structures. Referred pain from visceral organs is the most important from a clinical point of view.
What referred pain feels like?
What does referred pain feel like? This pain is commonly described as a shooting, burning sensation. But impinged nerves can also cause numbness or pins-and-needles sensation. “Numbness and tingling aren’t necessarily painful,” notes Dr.
What is an example of referred pain?
Referred pain is when the pain you feel in one part of your body is actually caused by pain or injury in another part of your body. For example, an injured pancreas could be causing pain in your back, or a heart attack could be triggering pain in your jaw.
How is the physiology of visceral pain related?
Physiology of Visceral Pain Pain involving thoracic, abdominal, or pelvic organs is a common cause for physician consultations, including one-third of chronic pain patients who report that visceral organs contribute to their suffering. Chronic visceral pain conditions are typically difficult to manage effectively, largely beca …
What does referred pain from the viscera mean?
Referred pain from the viscera, according to the generalizations of Head, is characterized, in part, as often being remote from the site of irritation, following the lines of spinal segmentation on the skin rather than the course of peripheral nerves, and usually being associated with cutaneous hyperesthesia.
Are there any physiological mechanisms for referred pain?
At least four physiological mechanisms have been proposed to explain referred pain 9): (1) activity in sympathetic nerves, (2) peripheral branching of primary afferent nociceptors, (3) convergence projection, and (4) convergence facilitation.
Why is somatic pain often accompanied by Visceral pain?
This convergence of visceral and somatic messages may be one reason for visceral pains often accompanying somatic pain conditions or vice versa. In addition there can be viscero-visceral convergence whereby pain from one organ is referred to another.