Pain physician
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Bladder pain associated with interstitial cystitis and painful bladder syndrome (IC/PBS) is frequently excruciating and intractable. The use of onabotulinumtoxinA (BoNT-A) for relief of this type of bladder pain has not been well described. ⋯ Intravesical onabotulinumtoxinA injection appears to be a safe and effective therapeutic option for analgesia and increased bladder capacity for patients with IC/PBS. INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Buddhist Tzu-chi General Hospital.
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Epidural steroid injection has been frequently performed to treat chronic pain due to lumbosacral disc herniation (L-HIVD). However, a considerable number of patients do not achieve pain relief using this method because perineural or epidural adhesions prevent the spread of injectate into the epidural space. Percutaneous adhesiolysis (PA) is thought to be a useful method because it can eliminate the deleterious effects of adhesion. ⋯ PA with NaviCath® showed clinical effectiveness in the treatment of chronic pain due to L-HIVD that was not responsive to transforaminal epidural injection. Previous surgery and the presence of spinal stenosis or spondylolisthesis were poor prognostic predictors. This procedure may enable the physician to place the catheter tip and deliver medicine more precisely.
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For more than 3 decades, spinal cord stimulation has successfully been employed to treat neuropathic pain. Cervical spinal cord stimulation, despite now being standard in many hospitals, has only rarely been subjected to a critical review within the literature. ⋯ Cervical spinal cord stimulation appears to be effective in the treatment of neuropathic upper limb pain. Complications are not significantly more frequent than in SCS for lower limb pain. Changes in paresthesia with head movements and unwanted paresthesia did not affect the outcome.
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Accumulating experimental and clinical evidence supports the hypothesis that complex regional pain syndrome type I (CRPS-I) may be a small fiber neuropathy. ⋯ The negative results indicate that CRPS-I may be associated with changes in the ultramicroscopic small fiber structure that cannot be visualized with commercially available techniques. Alternatively, functional rather than structural alterations of small fibers or pathological changes at a more proximal site such as the spinal cord or brain may be responsible for the syndrome.
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Therapy with corticosteroids often results in bone loss and corticosteroid-induced osteoporosis. In previous studies, bone mineral density (BMD) has been examined after administration of relatively high oral doses of corticosteroids. However, practitioners use comparatively lower doses of corticosteroids for epidural steroid injections (ESI). The interactions and relationships between BMD and ESI remain to be determined. ⋯ These data suggest that ESI using triamcinolone (over 200 mg) for a period of one year will have a negative effect on BMD in postmenopausal women treated for lower back pain. However, ESI therapy using a maximum cumulative triamcinolone dose of 200 mg in one year would be a safe treatment method with no significant impact on BMD.