Visceral pain vs parietal pain vs referred pain

Visceral pain

Stretching of unmyelinated fibers that innervate the walls or capsules of organs.

 “ crampy, dull, or achy," and it can be either steady or intermittent in nature. 

Often unable to lie still. 

Because the visceral afferents follow a segmental distribution

Parietal (somatic) abdominal pain

irritation of myelinated fiber that innervate the parietal peritoneum,usually the portion covering the anterior abdominal wall. 

Because parietal afferent signals are sent from a specific area of peritoneum, parietal pain in contrast to visceral paincian be localized to the dermatome superficial to the site of the painful stimulus. 

 

Referred pain

location distant from the diseased organ. 

Referred pain patterns are also based upon developmental embryology.