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Acute Pain

Understanding the different types of pain allows you to describe your symptoms accurately when talking with your doctor, making it easier to find the cause and right treatment. Here, we explore acute pain and its symptoms, causes, treatment, and resources to help live with it.


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Overview

What is Acute Pain?

Acute pain happens suddenly, starts out sharp or intense, and serves as a warning sign of disease or threat to the body. It is caused by injury, surgery, illness, trauma, or painful medical procedures and generally lasts from a few minutes to less than six months. Acute pain usually disappears whenever the underlying cause is treated or healed.

Learn More About Acute Pain

Resources to Learn More about Acute Pain

Acute pain is not something you can ignore. Seek medical attention if you are experiencing pain from trauma, major surgery, or illness that may require stronger medicine or more intensive therapies. After acute pain goes away, you can go on with life as usual, but if not appropriately treated, acute pain can turn into chronic pain. 

The International Association for the Study of Pain offers a variety of resources to help you learn more about acute pain, such as factsheets, webinars, journal articles, and resources relevant to people living with pain conditions.

ESTHER POGATZKI-ZAHN, Prof. Dr. med.
Meet the Acute Pain Expert

Meet Acute Pain Expert, Dr. Esther Pogatzki-Zahn

IASP Councilor, Esther Pogatzki-Zahn, founded the Acute Pain SIG in 2005, served as co-chair of the Global Year on Pain, and graciously volunteered her time and expertise to help curate the content on this topic page.

IASP IS MAKING AN IMPACT ON ACUTE PAIN

IASP is making an impact on Acute Pain

The International Association for the Study of Pain is making an impact on the study of acute pain in several meaningful ways.

The Acute Pain SIG advances and promotes the understanding of mechanisms, assessment, prevention, and management of acute pain.

IASP named 2020 as the Global Year on Pain Prevention and dedicated their advocacy efforts to disseminate pain prevention strategies to researchers, clinicians, and patients.

IASP Councilor, Esther Pogatzki-Zahn, founded the Acute Pain SIG in 2005 and served as co-chair with Dr. Brona Fullen of the Global Year on Pain Prevention.

You, too, can make an impact on acute pain. Join IASP today!