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Referred pain
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Referred pain is one of those quirks of the body: the painful stimulus is in one place and the pain shows up in another.
Exactly how it happens is still not settled: there is no consensus, and there are several theories. The best known is convergence and projection: the fibers that carry pain from a viscus, that is, from an internal organ, and the somatic fibers, the ones coming from the body's own tissues, enter the spinal cord through the same segment. They are two wires reaching the same panel, their origins mixed up.
The textbook example is a myocardial infarction, when part of the heart is cut off from its blood supply: the pain radiates out to the neck, the shoulders or the back.
And it can come in two different forms: visceral, when it starts in an organ, or somatic, when it starts in deep tissues such as muscles or joints.
In brief
Referred pain is feeling pain in a place other than where the painful stimulus is.
There is no consensus on its mechanism; the convergence and projection theory holds that visceral and somatic fibers enter through the same spinal segment.
Two wires reaching the same panel, their origins mixed up.
The classic example is pain that radiates out to the neck, shoulders and back after a myocardial infarction.
It can be visceral, from an organ, or somatic, from deep tissues such as muscles or joints.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingPhysiology, Pain, StatPearlsPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
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