Journal of Pain & Relief
Open Access

Abstract

Pain in spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most disturbing complaints after injury. Different taxonomies are used to classify pain in SCI. The International Spinal Cord Injury Pain Classification (ISCIP) has been adopted and published on 2012. Pain in SCI was divided into 4 subgroups including nociceptive, neuropathic, other and unknown pain according to this classification. Although the neuropathic pain seems to be the most frequent type of pain in SCI, the distinction between the neuropathic and nociceptive is crucial due to the different treatment approaches. According to the ISCIP, nociceptive pain includes musculoskeletal, visceral and other nociceptive pain categories. The nociceptive pain can often be managed as in the healthy population by classical physiatric approaches (ex. musculoskeletal pain) or other medical interventions (ex. visceral pain, acute abdomen). However, the major barrier to make prompt and accurate diagnosis of nociceptive pain in SCI is generally the loss of sensation below the injury level basically with complete injuries. This topic would be discussed with rare case presentations under recent literature review according to the different localization of nociceptive pain (above injury level, at level, below level).

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