Stuff provided initially for painful condition (5)
I believe the answer is:
cramp
'painful condition' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'stuff provided initially' is the wordplay.
'stuff' becomes 'cram' (cramming is a kind of stuffing).
'initially' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'provided' is 'p'.
'cram'+'p'='CRAMP'
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cramp that I've seen before include "Form of muscular pain" , "Muscular spasm, very painful" , "Painful muscular contraction" , "Contract" , "Muscle spasm" .)