A major barrier to appropriate pain management is a general misperception that pain and nociception are interchangeable terms. This encourages the belief that every individual will experience the same sensation given the same stimulus. This is analogous to suggesting that all individuals will grow to the same height given the same nourishment – a situation that all would agree is unlikely!. Nociception is the neural mechanism by which an individual detects the presence of a potentially tissueharming stimulus. There is no implication of (or requirement for) awareness of this stimulus. Pain is ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage’. Thus, perception of sensory events is a requirement, but actual tissue damage is not.