Articles: pain.
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Peridural injections of morphine were given to 180 incurable cancer patients suffering chronic pain. The effectiveness of the said procedure as well as its side-effects were assessed. A relationship between the external respiration parameters, on the one hand, and drug dosage and time postinjection, on the other, was studied. The data obtained point to the effectiveness of the said method and suggest that it be used as a universal procedure for the treatment of intractable pain in incurable patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Epidural morphine for pain relief after lumbar laminectomy.
A prospective randomized trial was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of epidural morphine for pain relief after lumbar laminectomy. Thirty-three male patients were studied in two groups. At the end of surgery, Group 1 patients (15) received 2 mg morphine in 5 ml saline through an epidural catheter. ⋯ There was no respiratory or cardiovascular depression detected in patients in either group. Nine patients in Group 1 and five patients in Group 2 had transient postoperative urinary retention that required catheterization. Only one patient in Group 1 had mild pruritus and three patients in Group 2 had nausea.
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Chronic pain research tends to focus on responses to thresholds, tolerance, and discrimination involving painful stimuli. This investigation, however, examines responses of individuals with chronic pain to non-painful stimuli. Two-point thresholds were obtained from 19 chronic pain patients and 17 pain-free individuals. ⋯ D., 15.0 mm) than that of the control group, which had a two-point threshold of 30.8 mm (S. D., 7.4 mm). The results indicate that chronic pain decreases tactual sensitivity to non-painful stimuli.