Stanford's Sean Mackey, MD, PhD on 'What is Chronic Pain?'

Chronic pain is a debilitating disease which affects over 100 million Americans. It costs the United States in excess of half a trillion dollars each year and is the leading cause for why people are out of work.

The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as, "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage." Pain is a subjective experience in which there is no method for determining if an individual is in pain. Every person experiences chronic pain in a different way which makes it difficult to treat.

Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, Redlich Professor and Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine at Stanford University describes chronic pain.

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