Neuropathic pain, also called nerve pain, is one of the many classes of chronic pain. Nerve pain can be caused by nerve damage, irritation or destruction.
How Nerve Pain Feels
Most people describe their chronic nerve pain with a similar set of words. Regardless of the cause, nerve pain can feel like any of the following:
* Burning
* Tingling
* Shooting
* Sharp
* Stabbing
* Prickling
Nerve pain may vary in intensity. For some, it can feel like mildly bothersome pins and needles. For others, the pain may be severe and nearly unbearable. Nerve pain may be localized (felt at or near the area of nerve damage) or referred (felt somewhere else in the body).
Nerve Pain Terminology
Because nerve pain is unique, it has some medical buzzwords associated with it. Nerve pain sensations may be described with these buzzwords, which include:
* Allodynia: When a person experiences pain after a stimulus that shouldn’t cause pain under ordinary circumstances, it is called allodynia.
* Hyperalgesia: If a person has hyperalgesia, mildly painful stimuli may be felt with greater intensity.
* Dysesthesia: Dysesthesia describes some sort of impairment in sensation. It can describe pain that is felt when there is no stimulus present at all, also called spontaneous pain.
Other Symptoms Associated With Nerve Pain
Like other types of chronic pain, neuropathic conditions often cause other symptoms in addition to pain. If you have any of the following in addition to the pain described above, you may have nerve damage:
* Partial or complete loss of feeling
* Muscle weakness
* Partial or complete paralysis
* Changes in skin appearance and texture
* Muscle disuse atrophy
* Depression and/or anxiety
