Available from your pharmacist without a prescription

What is acute pain?

Acute pain usually starts suddenly and lasts for a relatively short period of time. It is a normal response to an injury or medical condition.²

The good news is that acute pain usually disappears when the underlying cause is treated or healed.³ Until that happens, there are many things you can do to help manage acute pain and stop it getting in the way of your working day. It all starts with understanding the common causes, symptoms and the basics of acute pain management. Find out more below.

Causes of acute pain

Acute pain is a normal bodily response to an injury or a medical condition.² Sometimes you might be able to pinpoint the cause of acute pain: Did you lift something heavy at work? Were you on your feet all day? Did you twist or sprain something while playing sport? However other times the cause of acute pain may be unknown.⁴

Common causes of acute pain include:³

• Broken bones
• Surgery
• Dental work
• Childbirth
• Cuts and infections
• Burns
• Pulled or strained muscle
• Sprains of body part

If possible, it’s a good idea to try and identify the cause of your pain, as this will help inform how best to manage your type of acute pain. But don’t worry if this is not possible - there is plenty of general management advice for acute pain, regardless of the cause.

Symptoms of acute pain

Acute pain is a subjective experience, influenced by physical, psychological and environmental factors. Even a person’s attitudes, beliefs and personality can affect their pain experience.⁵

The symptoms of acute pain can also vary depending on what part of the body is affected by injury or a medical condition. Some common symptoms of acute pain include:³

• Sharp pain
• Throbbing
• Burning
• Stabbing pain
• Tingling
• Weakness
• Numbness

Although acute pain usually subsides when the underlying injury or medical condition heals, the experience of pain prior to healing can affect your work and social life, and even impact your mental health.³ In fact, if not appropriately treated, acute pain can turn into chronic pain which is more difficult to manage. That’s why managing acute pain is so important.

Managing acute pain

There are a number of things you can do to help manage acute pain. These include:^2,3

• Resting while the injury is healing
• Pain relief medicines, particularly those that treat certain types of acute pain like CELEBREX RELIEF^®; these are available from your Pharmacist without a prescription
• Physical therapies like heat and cold packs, massage, hydrotherapy and keeping active
• Psychological therapies like relaxation techniques, yoga and meditation
• Mind and body techniques such as acupuncture.

A combination of treatments is usually more effective than a single treatment, and understanding the location and underlying cause of acute pain can help tailor pain management strategies.³ This website contains more information about the specific management strategies for back pain, shoulder pain, ankle sprain and period pain.

When to see a doctor

If pain is severe or does not improve within 48 hours of and taking non-prescription pain medicines, you should seek medical advice.⁶

When pain continues to be experienced even after the injury has healed and the pain lasts for more than 3 months, this is called persistent or chronic pain. Persistent or chronic pain is treated differently to acute pain; you should consult your doctor for the treatment of persistent pain.^6,7