We all know what pain is. But why does it exist? And what's it like to live with chronic pain? This animated claymation documentary was made in partnership with @royalsociety #BBCIdeas

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Humankind has constantly tried to define pain. It isn't easy. Most of the pains that we feel are day-to-day. And they do resolve. They're part of our body's protection - making us rest and protect the area and make sure it doesn't get infected if it's a wound. And so day-to-day pain may be kind of annoying, but it is really important. A life without pain would be very dangerous and life-threatening.

Neuropathic pain is really intense. It's experienced as almost real events, like being pinched and squeezed, very severe, what feel like electrical pulses. And clinical experts in pain are able to right away identify neuropathic pain because of these awful descriptors. The last kind of pain, the third kind of pain, is really the mystery. And that is the existence of pain for which there is no obvious origin. So that does not in any way mean that it isn't real. It's 100% real. It's just that our understanding of our bodies is limited at the moment, and you can't find an injury. So, we're left with a population of people who are really suffering from pain, and it interferes with their life, but we don't understand where it comes from.

Pain itself is a hidden disability. And it's really difficult to get that across, because you can't see somebody else's pain. It's absolutely exhausting. The outstanding mystery is why is it that a substantial number of our population are suffering from pain without any obvious biological purpose?

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