Neuropathic pain is totally different. This type of pain is caused either by damage to the peripheral or central nervous system or by the abnormal processing of painful information in the central nervous system caused by such damage. Examples might include pain due to nerves being damaged by chemotherapy drugs, surgery or radiation, to a tumor pressing on nerves or to the direct invasion of cancers into nervous tissue . Neuropathic pain is often resistant to or unresponsive to narcotic therapies. The dosages of narcotics needed to control this type of pain may be greater than the dosages used to control somatic pain. Sometimes, caregivers may have to choose other forms of medications or other pain treatments to relieve neuropathic pain.
Unfortunately, not everyone has purely somatic or neuropathic pain. Some people may have both, and choosing a treatment to fit the pain type in patients who have mixed somatic and neuropathic pain can be difficult.
Physical Sources Cancer pain can be caused by the cancer itself, the drugs used to control or cure cancer, surgical treatments or radiation therapy . People with cancer can also have all the pains that people without cancer have—back pain from a "slipped disk," a broken bone from a skiing accident or daily headaches from stress. In other words, the onset of pain or the development of a new pain does not necessarily come from the cancer or mean that the disease has spread.
• Somatic pain from the cancer itself may come from a bone that breaks because the tumor has weakened the
bone structure or from an obstruction in the intestine or urinary tract.
