Articles: pain.
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Pain is a complex physiological phenomenon that begins with the stimulation of free nerve endings in peripheral tissues and culminates in the perception of a physical and psychological state. The pain experience may be facilitated or inhibited through the action of several neurologic circuits which utilize several neurotransmitters. Therapeutic analgesia is achieved either through interference with pain-facilitating mechanisms or enhancement of pain-inhibiting mechanisms; practical applications are reviewed.
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In pre-terminal and terminal gynaecological patients with persistent cancer pain, now it is possible to carry out some anthalgic methods associated or not to parenteral administration of non-narcotic or narcotic analgesic, i.e. intrathecal neurolytic injections and epidural narcotic administration. Many favourable results have been obtained by means of single or repeated 7% phenol in glycerine injections to patients with advanced but not terminal cancer affected by somatic and segmental pain or by perineal pain. ⋯ This method appears to be the best answer to many problems complained by the patients: pain, depression, malaise. As a matter of fact, low doses of epidural morphine induce both complete pain relief and sedation or slight drowsiness.