Throbbing pain is an unpleasant pulsatile feeling of distress. Throbbing pain is also described as rapid, violent and vibrating pain. Patient often complaints of throbbing headache, throbbing joint pain, throbbing abdominal pain or throbbing tooth pain. Intensity of pain is often described as mild, moderate, severe or very severe pain. Throbbing pain is mostly moderate to very severe in intensity and very rarely mild in character. Throbbing pain is described as continuous severe pain, which pulsates like heart beat. Throbbing pain is associated with increased pulse rate and blood pressure. Heart disease resulting in increase pulse rate or blood pressure does not cause throbbing pain. Throbbing pain is not linked to increased pulse rate.
Types of Throbbing Pain
Throbbing pain is classified as an Acute Throbbing Pain or Chronic Throbbing Pain. Pain characterized as a throbbing pain lasting for 3 to 6 months is described as acute pain and throbbing pain lasting 6 months or more is called chronic throbbing pain.
What Can Cause Throbbing Pain?
- Causes of Throbbing Pain in the Head or Throbbing Headache-
- Migraine
- Temporal Arteritis
- Brain Cancer
- Causes of Throbbing Tooth Pain-
- Tooth Cavity or Caries
- Tooth Abscess.
- Causes of Throbbing Leg and Hand Pain –
- Finger and Toe Abscess,
- Frost Bite
- Gout
- Radicular Pain
- Infected Joint
- Bone Cancer
- Causes of Throbbing Chest Pain-
- Breast Abscess
- Fracture Rib
- Pleuritis
- Pleural Abscess
- Lung Abscess
- Lung cancer
- Pneumothorax
- Causes of Throbbing Pain in Stomach-
- Abdominal Aneurysm
- Abdominal Abscess
- Pelvic Abscess
- Abdominal Cancer.
- Causes of Throbbing Back Pain-
- Facet Joint Arthritis
- Fracture of Vertebral Body
- Metastatic Cancer of Vertebrae
- Epidural Abscess or Hematoma
Clinical Signs of Throbbing Pain
In the past, scientist and physician had described that, pulsatile character of throbbing pain is produced by transmission of arterial pulsation from blood vessels lying within or around the diseased or injured tissue. Later research and papers published in scientific journal suggests the rate of throbbing pain is often slower than pulse rate. The recent study published indicates rate of throbbing while patient suffering from throbbing pain is slower than the pulse rate.
Regional throbbing pain is described as throbbing headache, throbbing tooth pain, throbbing chest pain, throbbing abdominal pain and throbbing extremity pain. Throbbing pain is perception of pulsatile pain produced by rapid intermittent transmission pain impulses from disease tissue to pain centers in brain. The brain registers the pain in rapid sequence as the impulses are interpreted by neurons in pain centers. The pain thus is felt as pulsatile pain or throbbing in nature.
How is Throbbing Pain Treated?
Treatment for Symptoms of Throbbing Pain-
Symptom like throbbing pain is treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) or opioids.
- NSAIDs-
- Motrin,
- Naproxen and
- Celebrex.
- Opioids-
- Hydrocodone (Vicodine, Norco and Loratab)
- Oxycodone (Percocete and Oxycontin)
- Morphine (MS IR and MS Contin)
Treatment of the Cause of Throbbing Pain
Each cause of throbbing pain is evaluated and disease is treated appropriately after multiple investigation and careful diagnosis.
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