Articles: neuralgia.
-
Fifty-four patients developed severe intercostal neuralgia a few weeks after sternotomy. Immediate relief afforded by parasternal nerve blocks confirmed that the pain derived from scar-entrapped neuromas of the anterior rami of the first 4-6 intercostal nerves in the upper (and mainly left) interchondral spaces after insertion of the sternal wires. Permanent relief (i.e., over 6 months) followed repeated bupivacaine blocks in 57.4% of the patients, phenol blocks in another 22.2%, and alcohol blocks in a remaining 9%. Treatment was successful in 87% of the patients.
-
The first type of facial pain is of vascular origin. Cluster headache is described as well as its subgroups and carotidodynia. Two organic lesions of the arterial wall can also cause facial pain: dissection of the internal carotid artery and giant cell arteritis. ⋯ Also, local lesions in the cranial nerves can cause facial pain, as well as organic processes of the upper cervical spine and of the occipitocervical transition. The characteristics of facial pain due to eye or ENT and dental lesions are described. So called atypical facial pain occurs quite frequently and mostly affects middle-aged women.
-
A rare neurovascular complication of a antebrachial arteriovenous fistula in a chronic hemodialysis patient is reported. A large brachial venous pseudoaneurysm caused median neuralgia by direct compression of the nerve. Surgical resection of the pseudoaneurysm resulted in complete relief of neuralgia.
-
Case Reports
An unusual case of causalgia. Relevance to recent hypothesis on mechanism of causalgia.
Intravenous regional sympathetic block with guanethidine caused only limited improvement in a patient with longstanding causalgia. Lumbar sympathetic block with phenol also had little direct effect on the pain but completely abolished associated allodynia and vasomotor signs. ⋯ This improvement persisted even after 8 months when there was some return of the previous allodynia and vasomotor signs (to involve a smaller area than previously). The case would appear to have implications for a recently proposed hypothesis concerning the mechanism of pain in causalgia.
-
Spinal cord stimulation is considered to be ineffective in relieving deafferentation pain. We have retrospectively analyzed the results obtained in a series of 41 patients. Sixteen suffered from pain associated with an incomplete traumatic spinal lesion, 15 from a posttherapeutic neuralgia, and 10 from pain due to root and/or nerve damage. ⋯ The mean analgesia achieved was 70%. From this analysis we conclude that the results achieved in the postherapeutic pain patients, although positive in only 66% of them, are remarkably stable with time. Therefore, we recommend a percutaneous test trial of SCS in every case of postherapeutic pain resistant to medical treatment.