When you stub your toe, burn yourself, or experience a cut, you're are activating the nociceptive pain receptors.Another primary classification is neuropathic pain which is caused by damage to any part of the nervous system. It's this sort of injury that results in sensations like tingling, electrical shocks, or pins and needles.

It's also the same pain you feel when you hit your funny bone.There's also phantom pain, which is pain felt in a body part that has been amputated, or from a limb which is no longer transmitting signals to the brain.In addition to these, other forms of pain include psychogenic (or psychosomatic pain), breakthrough pain (what cannot be alleviated by normal pain management), incident pain (such as stretching a wound), and pain asymbolia and insensitivity (which is the sudden alleviation or masking of pain, like the experience of an athlete who has seriously injured himself but feels no pain for a prolonged period).

Lastly, there's also duration to keep in mind, which includes chronic pain. People with rheumatoid arthritis know all too well about this one.

As noted, the physiological and neurological underpinnings of pain are incredibly complex. There are essentially four mechanisms that make it work: Our nerve fibers, pain receptors, the spinal column, and the brain itself.Our bodies are equipped with different sensory nerve fibers that can respond to different physical stimuli, such as a person's touch, running water, or a pin-prick. Depending on the extent of the physical contact, our nerve fibers will produce different chemical responses that in turn influence how the sensations are interpreted.