Referred Pain: Common Areas and What It Means (2024)

FAQs

Referred Pain: Common Areas and What It Means? ›

Referred pain is when you have an injury in one area of your body but feel pain somewhere else. This happens because all the nerves in your body are part of a huge, connected network. Referred pain can occur anywhere, but it's most common in your neck, shoulders, back, teeth and jaws.

A prime example of this phenomenon is the pain experienced in cardiac ischemia; the pain is felt in the neck, left shoulder and down the left arm. The referred pain occurs because of multiple primary sensory neurons converging on a single ascending tract.

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.

As with referrals from organ tissue to musculoskeletal tissue, you can also have referred pain from muscle tissue to muscle tissue. This relationship is called the dermatomal rule. All nerves from the periphery must make their way to the central nervous system by converging within the spinal cord.

Heart Related Issues. Angina: Reduced blood flow to the heart can cause referred pain to the left shoulder, often described as a dull or heavy ache. Heart Attack: Left shoulder pain, along with other symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, and nausea, can indicate a heart attack, especially in women.

Referred pain is a type of pain that is perceived to be in one location other than where the pain stimulus is. For example, if you were to put your elbow in a bucket of ice water, you will feel pain in your hand and not in your elbow.

Examples of Referred Pain

Cardiac arrest—if you are having a heart attack, then you may experience referred pain or numbness in your left arm, upper middle part of your back or jaw. Lung and diaphragm—if you are suffering from lung or diaphragm issues, then you may find that your neck or upper shoulder area may hurt.

Lower back pain is the most common area that Americans seek help because of injury, disc pressure, long periods of inactivity, or from aging which can begin as early as your thirties but is more likely after fifty.

What is a somatic referred pain area? ›

Pain the your lower back, buttocks, groin or upper legs can be referred from a structure in your back or abdomen. This is different to pain down the leg from a 'trapped nerve' (radicular pain) where the pain usually follows the track of the irritated nerve and may cause tingling or numbness.

Some of the most common examples of referred pain include: Referred back pain. Upper back pain, especially between your shoulder blades (Kehr's sign), might mean that you have a ruptured spleen. Lower back pain or flank pain may indicate colon or kidney issues.

Somatic referred pain is explicitly somatic pain that becomes referred. The term is used to distinguish referred pain that arises from the musculoskeletal tissues of the body from visceral referred pain.

Causes of referred shoulder pain may include: Abdominal problems, such as gallstones or pancreatitis. Pelvic problems, such as a ruptured ovarian cyst. Heart or blood vessel problems in which pain is more often felt in the left arm and shoulder, such as heart attack or inflammation around the heart (pericarditis).

Pain in your chest and shoulder can have many causes. Some of the most common include angina or other heart conditions, gallstones, pericarditis, pleurisy, or pancreatitis. Unexplained pain that occurs in both your chest and shoulder should always be checked out by your doctor.

Pericarditis occurs when this becomes inflamed due to infection or a disorder where the body's immune system attacks itself. Symptoms of acute pericarditis include : sharp, stabbing pain under the left breast or in the chest. pain in one or both shoulders.

Pain felt in a part of the body other than it's actual pain. Example of referred pain: Pain produced from a heart attack may feel as if it's coming from the arm because sensory information from the arm & heart converges on the same nerve pathway in the spinal cord. Why is pain referred?

Referred pain is any pain that is felt in a different part of the body than where the primary cause of the pain is located. For example, even though the cold treat is in your mouth, you feel pain in your head.

Define referred pain. "Referred Pain is visceral pain felt at some distance from a diseased or affected organ. Referred pain occurs when the brain misinterprets the pain as originating from a cutaneous nerve that innervates an area that is, in fact, at a site other than the affected organ."

Typically, referred pain is described as dull, aching, gnawing, annoying, drilling, or pressing (1, 55). Sometimes, referred pain is associated with secondary hyperalgesia and trophic changes (3).