The Clinical journal of pain
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Analysis of peak magnitude and duration of analgesia produced by local anesthetics injected into sympathetic ganglia of complex regional pain syndrome patients.
Pain-relieving effects of lidocaine/bupivicaine local anesthetic (LA) and saline (S) block of sympathetic ganglia (stellate block, 4 patients; lumbar sympathetic block, 3 patients) were compared in 7 complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) patients on a double-blind crossover basis to evaluate the diagnostic and therapeutic value of local anesthetic sympathetic blocks. ⋯ The combination of these results provides evidence that duration of pain relief is affected by injection of local anesthetics into sympathetic ganglia. These results indicate that both magnitude and duration of pain reduction should be closely monitored to provide optimal efficacy in procedures that use local anesthetics to treat CRPS.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Vibration pain provocation can improve the specificity of MRI in the diagnosis of symptomatic lumbar disc rupture.
The purpose of this study was to determine if vibration pain provocation could be combined with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to increase its specificity in identifying symptomatic disc disruption identified by discography. ⋯ A small hand-held vibrator could produce pain provocation results similar to those obtained by discography. Results of this noninvasive pain provocation method can improve the specificity and accuracy of MRI in identifying symptomatic disc lesions.