Der Schmerz
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Acupuncture is increasingly being used in Western medicine. In the present study the effect of acupuncture treatment was examined in 60 patients with chronic pain. The long-term success after 6 months was evaluated in 45 patients. ⋯ It appeared that the consumption of analgesics could be reduced significantly in patients in whom the treatment was successful. All patients had been treated before by several methods. Because of the small number of side-effects and the patients' high degree of acceptance as well as the success of the treatment, we consider acupuncture an effective method in the treatment of chronic pain.
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A case history of therapy resistent trigeminal neuralgia was presented by Wechsung and Müller. This patient was previously treated without any succes with glycerol injections, "electrocauterisation", a Janetta operation and 2 reexplorations of the posterior fossa. Attempts with oral carbamazepine and baclofen were unsuccesful too. ⋯ The most succesful surgical procedure is the radiofrequency thermal lesion of the Gasserian ganglion (Sweet). Data from the literature from 8500 patients and own data (from over 600 patients) show that therapy resistance is very infrequent (0.5%). The costs of clinical implantation of a pump with intrathecally administered baclofen are 10-15 times higher than ambulant radiofrequency lesioning.
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Because of distinct pain symptoms in the presence of an ascending partial paralysis-Brown-Sequard Syndrome-from T 5/6 upward in a 56-year-old patient, therapy with paravasalic injections of bupivacaine 0.125% in the area of the femoral artery (right) was given. The patient kept a pain diary with entries every 2 h for 61 weeks. Evaluation of the documentation demonstrates the success of the therapy and shows the possibilities of different kinds of evaluation of well-documented pain data.