Current pain and headache reports
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Apr 2010
ReviewFear of pain as a prognostic factor in chronic pain: conceptual models, assessment, and treatment implications.
Chronic pain is a pervasive health care issue affecting over 50 million Americans and costing more than $100 billion dollars annually in lost productivity and health care costs. As a financially and emotionally taxing condition, the families and friends of people with chronic pain, as well as society at large, are affected. ⋯ This article summarizes current understanding of the role of pain-related fear in the onset of acute pain incidents, the transition of acute pain to chronic, and the pain severity and disability of patients with ongoing chronic pain conditions. Treatments demonstrated to reduce pain-related fear are presented, evidence demonstrating their efficacy at reducing disability and pain severity are summarized, and recent criticisms of the fear-avoidance model and future directions are considered.
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Torture is widely practiced throughout the world. Recent studies indicate that 50% of all countries, including 79% of the G-20 countries, continue to practice systematic torture despite a universal ban. ⋯ This review highlights the epidemiology, classification, pain sequelae, and clinical treatment guidelines of torture victims. In addition, the role of pharmacologic and psychologic interventions is explored in the context of rehabilitation.
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Cluster headache (CH) is a neurovascular headache syndrome characterized by headache attacks that occur with a circadian and circannual periodicity. The calculated prevalence of CH in reproductive-aged women is 7.5 of 100,000 women. ⋯ Thus, treatment of CH in pregnant and lactating women may remain a significant therapeutic challenge. This manuscript briefly reviews the epidemiology of CH in women, and then focuses on treatment options for both acute and preventative management of CH in pregnant and lactating women.
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Apr 2010
ReviewIntravenous lidocaine and mexiletine in the management of trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias.
Lidocaine and mexiletine are class 1B antiarrhythmic drugs that act on sodium channels. Lidocaine is also an important anesthetic and topical agent that is useful in the treatment of multiple pain disorders, and mexiletine is commonly used for neuropathic pain and myotonia. ⋯ This suggests a role for these agents in patients with headache disorders. This article describes the role of intravenous lidocaine and mexiletine in the management of headache and trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias based on the published literature to date and provides practical guidelines for their use.
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Apr 2010
ReviewUnravelling the mystery of pain, suffering, and relief with brain imaging.
In humans, the experience of pain and suffering is conveyed specifically by language. Noninvasive neuroimaging techniques now provide an account of neural activity in the human brain when pain is experienced. Knowledge gleaned from neuroimaging experiments has shaped contemporaneous accounts of pain. ⋯ In the brains of patients with chronic pain, neuroimaging has revealed subtle but significant structural, functional, and neurochemical abnormalities. Converging evidence suggests that the chronic pain state may arise from dysfunction of the frontal-limbic system. Further research in the clinical pain population will continue to identify neural mechanisms that contribute to the experience and consequence of pain, which may then be targeted therapeutically.