Acute pain is a warning signal. It indicates an injury or inflammation and subsides as it heals. If pain lasts longer than three months or keeps coming back, doctors speak of chronic pain. By then it has often lost its warning function and become a condition in its own right – even if the original cause healed long ago.
One reason for this is a nervous system that learns. If pain signals are transmitted over a long period, nerve cells can become more sensitive; even light stimuli or a touch then hurt. On top of this, there is often a cycle of resting, dwindling strength, poor sleep, worry and withdrawal that intensifies the pain further.
Common types of chronic pain include back pain, nerve pain, for example with diabetes or after shingles, headaches and migraine, and fibromyalgia with pain throughout the body. A single measure is rarely enough for them. Another tablet, another injection or an operation falls short when pain has many sides.
Multimodal therefore means several forms of treatment at the same time, coordinated with each other. Medical pain therapy, physiotherapy and exercise therapy, psychological pain management, relaxation techniques and advice on everyday life and work follow a shared plan. The goal is realistic: less pain, more mobility and more room again for what matters in life.