What is Pain?

Pain is like the blinking red light in our cars telling us the oil is low. Sometimes it’s just a bad sensor and we can ignore it. Other times we need to actually replace the oil or wait until the engine blows and deal with the stressful consequences.

When Do We Feel Pain?

Many of us who engage in sports or activities have experienced that random red light or pain during a workout that we ignore because it just disappeared the next day. Other times we feel that nagging pain that will not go away until we decide to pay attention or the escalating injury will finally make us pay attention. The scope and duration of this experience is dependent upon many variables: degree of tissue insult, prior injury, underlying inflammatory disorders, exercise habits and access to medical care.