Pain
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Rats developed tactile allodynia within days of the onset of diabetes and which persisted for up to 8 weeks. Allodynia was prevented by insulin therapy that maintained normoglycemia while established allodynia was reversed by insulin therapy and normoglycemia of days but not hours duration. Tactile allodynia persisted in diabetic rats that received enough insulin to maintain normal body and foot weights but remained hyperglycemic, whereas this therapy was sufficient to correct other nerve disorders in diabetic rats, including deficits of sensory and motor nerve conduction velocity, nerve blood flow and hyperalgesia during the formalin test. ⋯ Systemic lidocaine treatment alleviated tactile allodynia in nerve injured control rats and both sham-operated and nerve injured diabetic rats. The streptozotocin-diabetic rat develops tactile allodynia that appears to be related to prolonged periods of insulin deficiency or hyperglycemia and which is amenable to treatment with lidocaine. The model may be of use in investigating the efficacy of other potential therapeutic agents for treating painful diabetic neuropathy.
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Patients with chronic non-malignant pain are often suspected of reporting medical symptoms that have non-organic as opposed to purely organic origins. According to the somatization hypothesis, non-organic reporting occurs when affective or other benign physical sensations are misconstrued as symptoms of physical disease [corrected]. Psychological tests purporting to assess somatization are limited by their self-report format and may be confounded in patients with physical disease or injury. ⋯ When compared to Minimizers, Amplifiers were disabled for a significantly greater number of days, reported significantly more impairment in domestic functioning, were significantly less active, visited the doctor significantly more often, and were significantly more distressed. The results suggest that substantial differences in disability and medical visitation may exist among patients who may not differ appreciably in their level of organic pathology. Instead, differences in illness behavior may, to some extent, be mediated by differences in somatization.
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Pain treatment is a crucial aspect in the care of children with cancer and there are many studies demonstrating inefficient pain treatment. In this study, questionnaires dealing with pain treatment of children with malignant diseases were sent to all (47) pediatric departments in Sweden. The aims of this nationwide survey were to evaluate the extent and causes of pain, the use of methods for pain evaluation (e.g. analysis of type of pain and monitoring of pain intensity), principles of pain management, side effects of pain treatment and the educational needs of physicians and nurses regarding these issues. ⋯ According to a majority of physicians and nurses (72%), pain could be treated more effectively than it is presently, and 64% state that they need more time for the management of pain. Both physicians and nurses state that they need additional education in different areas of pain evaluation and pain treatment. Swedish treatment practices for the management of pediatric cancer pain roughly follow the published guidelines, but many improvements are still necessary.