Health Conditions

What causes it?

Nerve cells located in and beneath your skin sense heat, cold, touch, pressure, and pain. When your body is injured, or if pressure is applied to your body's nerves, these tiny cells send messages into your spinal cord and up to your brain. Your brain then interprets these signals as pain. Sometimes the brain perceives pain even when there is no detectable injury or pressure on the body's nerves. In other cases, the nerves themselves may become damaged or diseased and cause pain. This is called neuropathic pain, and the pain is often described as shooting or aching. When nerves are damaged, pain may be experienced even when there is no clear cause.