The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”

According to medical experts, pain can be felt in any part of the body — chronic pain, knee pain, back pain, muscle pain, nerve pain, neck and shoulder pain, post surgical pain, and diabetic neuropathic pain is increasing among the diabetics. “More than half of all diabetics suffer from nerve damage during their lifetime,” says Dr. Ebaa Al-Samman, consultant for internal medicine and endocrinology at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Jeddah.

Diabetic neuropathy (DPN) is a form of nerve damage caused by inadequate control of blood sugar levels. An estimated 65.3 percent of diabetes patients are affected, experiencing the sensation of painful tingling or numbness in the feet or the hands.

He says more than 25 percent of the total population already suffer from diabetes. And many of them are unaware of the risks they are taking with their lifestyle. It is in this context that an awareness campaign “Know your pain” has been launched in the interest of the diabetic pain patients by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, which has entered its second phase.  “More than half of all diabetics suffer from nerve damage during their lifetime,” Dr. Al-Samman told Arab News.  The campaign follows the successful first phase.

Touching upon the crux of the problem, he points out that nearly half of all patients suffer from the nerve damage because they are not correctly diagnosed in time. DNP has a significant limiting impact on not only the social and professional lives of patients, but also on the most basic daily activities, such as being able to move around and enjoy family time.

Reviewing the symptoms of DPN (resulting from injury inflammation of the peripheral nerves) — a variety of unpleasant sensations, cold or hot, numb or “jumping.” With high blood sugar levels, the over-stimulated, damaged nerves send a signal to all parts of the body, which results in the various manifestations of pain.

One of  the most tangible forms of DPN is the so-called “diabetic foot,” a clear example of inflammation of the peripheral nerves. Dr. Al-Samman has advised patients to take care of the diabetic foot to avoid the more serious complications, which might occur. Statistics from the American Association of Diabetes indicate that 25 percent of the population is diagnosed with diabetes and 56 percent of these do not know that they have DPN. Apart from the known symptoms, patients also experience insomnia and anxiety.

Pain is the most prominent member of a class of sensations known as bodily sensations, which includes itches, tickles, tingles, orgasms, and so on. Bodily sensations are typically attributed to bodily locations and appear to have features such as volume, intensity, duration, and so on, that are ordinarily attributed to physical objects or quantities. Yet these sensations are often thought to be logically private, subjective, self-intimating, and the source of incorrigible knowledge for those who have them. Hence there appear to be reasons both for thinking that pains (along with other similar bodily sensations) are physical objects or conditions that we perceive in body parts, and for thinking that they are not. This paradox is one of the main reasons why philosophers are especially interested in pain. One increasingly popular but still controversial way to deal with this paradox is to defend a perceptual or representational view of pain, according to which feeling pain is in principle no different than undergoing other standard perceptual processes like seeing, hearing, touching, etc. But there are many who think that pains are not amenable to such a treatment.

Talking about other forms of pain, a medical expert at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals says pain is a feeling triggered in the nervous system. It may be sharp or dull. It may come and go, or it may be constant. You may feel pain in one area of your body, such as your back, abdomen or chest or you may feel pain all over, such as when your muscles ache from the flu.

Pain can be helpful. Without pain, you might seriously hurt yourself without knowing it, or you might not realize you have a medical problem that needs treatment. Once you take care of the problem, pain usually goes away. However, sometimes pain goes on for weeks, months or even years. This is called chronic pain. Sometimes chronic pain is due to an ongoing cause, such as cancer or arthritis. Sometimes the cause is unknown.

There are many ways to treat pain. Treatment varies depending on the cause of pain. Pain relievers, acupuncture and sometimes surgery are helpful. Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can significantly interfere with a person’s quality of life and general functioning. Pain medicine is a subspecialty under such medical specialties as anesthesiology, neurology, palliative medicine and psychiatry. The study of pain has in recent years attracted many different fields including pharmacology, neurobiology, nursing, dentistry, physiotherapy, and psychology, he says.