Whether your pain is originating from your muscles or your fascial tissue may influence what type of pain sensations you are experiencing.
Researchers recruited 16 healthy test subjects and used electrical stimulation to provide nociceptive afferent input in various types of tissues. When the researchers provided the pain stimulus to the muscle tissue, subjects described more of a “deep“ pain and used terms such as “beating“, “throbbing“, and “pounding“. Interestingly, when the pain was provided to the fascia, subjects described both “superficial thermal“ type pain, using words such as “burning“ pain, as well as a “superficial mechanical“ pain that felt like “cutting“ or “tearing“.
Conclusions
This fascinating study illustrates how different structures of the body can create different sensations of pain or discomfort. If patients are experiencing pain, this information could potentially be useful for providing clues as to which structures the pain is originating from.
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