Pain
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Reliability and validity of verbal descriptor scales of painfulness.
Previous studies have provided information about the reliability and validity of verbal descriptor scales of sensory intensity and unpleasantness and have shown that these two dimensions can be differentially affected by pharmacological manipulations. Since the relation between these dimensions and the general term 'pain' is not known, two experiments developed a verbal descriptor scale of painfulness and compared the sensitivity of this scale to pharmacological manipulations used previously with scales of sensory intensity and unpleasantness. In exp. ⋯ Seven electrical stimuli spaced between individually determined pain threshold and tolerance values were delivered in random sequence 6 times before and after double-blind intravenous infusions of placebo, 0.11 mg/kg diazepam, 0.66 microgram/kg fentanyl or a combination of the diazepam and fentanyl doses. Mean responses were reduced significantly after all active drugs but not after placebo. These results suggest that the term pain does not represent a simple combination of sensory intensity and/or unpleasantness and shows that the sensitivity to an inert placebo, an active placebo, and an analgesic can vary with the type of pain assessment procedure.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Trazodone hydrochloride in the treatment of dysesthetic pain in traumatic myelopathy: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
Dysesthetic pain following traumatic myelopathy is characterized by diffuse burning and tingling sensations distal to the level of spinal injury. The dysesthetic pain syndrome (DPS) can compromise performance of functional abilities and inhibit participation in rehabilitation programs. Recent laboratory evidence suggests that antidepressant medications with selective inhibition of serotonin reuptake in the brain may be associated with superior analgesic effect compared to such non-selective agents as amitriptyline. ⋯ However, significantly more patients randomized to trazodone complained of side effects and prematurely terminated their participation in the study. The results of this investigation are consistent with those of other earlier trials which indicate that such antidepressant medications as trazodone hydrochloride which selectively inhibit presynaptic reuptake of serotonin, may not be effective in the control of certain pain syndromes. These results do not preclude the possible utility of these agents in the treatment of other pain syndromes or at higher doses than previously studied.