22 simple truths about pain​

1. All pain is real.
2. The better we understand pain, the better equipped we are to manage it and change it.
3. Pain is an unpleasant physical and emotional biopsychosocial experience with biological, psychological, and social contributors,  including past experiences, thoughts and beliefs, structural damage, lifestyle, feelings and emotions, social situation,  etc. - not just a number on the pain scale or a physical sensation.
4. Pain is a signal meant to protect us.
5. The brain determines and modulates the pain experience, not just the body part where the pain is felt.​
6. Chronic pain is a clinical diagnosis, not an imaging one. Images don't show the pain or its cause. We aren't our X-ray. ​  
7. There is a difference between acute short-term pain and chronic long-term pain.
8. Acute pain is the body's normal response to tissue damage or injury. It is a symptom. The pain matches the damage, and treatment works—generally lasting less than three months. 
9. Chronic pain is an abnormal response that can become its own condition and occur with or without tissue damage or injury. ​​​​
10. The longer we have pain, the less likely it is to be directly related to tissue damage or injury, and more about an overprotective nervous system, as we become oversensitized to pain. 
11. The longer we have pain, the better our bodies can learn to adapt to it and create it, increasing the pain. 
12. Hurt doesn't always mean harm.
13. What we think and feel about pain, and how we behave toward it, affect the pain experience.
14. Constant focus on the pain and talking about the pain – including dwelling on the cause of the pain, the sensations, the intensity, what the pain means, and when the next flare might happen -- can be unhelpful and factor in both the development and maintenance of chronic pain.
15. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Pain is what we feel — it happens to us. Suffering is what we do with pain — we have a choice.
16. There is no single magical cure for chronic pain.
17. Avoiding doing things in expectation of pain or because of pain worsens the pain experience.
18. Expectations need to change from being pain-free to living well despite pain. It's essential to accept, adjust, and adapt to the pain.​ Focusing solely on pain reduction, especially elimination, can make it difficult to recover. Function and quality of life improve before pain improves.
19. Just treating the pain or a specific body part is not enough. We need to treat the whole person — body and mind — using an interdisciplinary approach.
20. Pain can be modified and managed by retraining an overprotective nervous system.​
21. People living with pain can change their pain experience by taking active responsibility to actively self-manage the pain with support from healthcare professionals. You must do the work. The change happens with you.
22. Just as we can learn pain, we can unlearn pain. 
23. Recovery is possible. The pain experience can change, even go away. If it doesn't, we can live well despite the pain.

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