Articles: pain.
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Morphine sulphate 5 mg and placebo administered epidurally after caesarean section under epidural analgesia were compared in a double-blind fashion. Morphine was significantly superior to placebo for pain relief, duration of pain relief, and reduction of parenteral narcotic requirements. ⋯ There was no statistical difference between morphine and placebo in the incidence of urinary catheterisation, vomiting, nausea, dizziness or drowsiness. No serious respiratory depression requiring treatment was observed.
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J. Clin. Periodontol. · May 1983
Comparative StudyEfficacy of paracetamol in reducing post-operative pain after periodontal surgery.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, the efficacy of 2 doses of paracetamol (500 and 1000 mg) was assessed in post-operative pain after periodontal flap surgery. Both doses of paracetamol provided greater analgesia than placebo, however, significant analgesia (P less than 0.05) was only noted in the early post-operative period. The analgesia from both doses of paracetamol did not differ significantly throughout the 3-day observation period, however, greater analgesia was attributable to 1000 mg paracetamol in the immediate post-operative period. The results from this study suggest that paracetamol is an effective analgesic for controlling post-operative pain after periodontal flap surgery, with 1000 mg dose being more effective than 500 mg immediately after surgery.
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Assessment of chronic pain. I. Aspects of the reliability and validity of the visual analogue scale.
The visual analogue scale (VAS) is a simple and frequently used method for the assessment of variations in intensity of pain. In clinical practice the percentage of pain relief, assessed by VAS, is often considered as a measure of the efficacy of treatment. However, as illustrated in the present study, the validity of VAS estimates performed by patients with chronic pain may be unsatisfactory. ⋯ As shown in this study the absolute type of VAS seems to be less sensitive to bias than the comparative one and is therefore preferable for general clinical use. Moreover, the patients appear to differ considerably in their ability to use the VAS reliably. When assessing efficacy of treatment attention should therefore be paid to several complementary indices of pain relief as well as to the individual's tendency to bias his estimates.
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This study investigated the quality and magnitude of sensations evoked by electrical tooth pulp stimulation. Detection threshold (the minimum current intensity that evoked a sensation) and pain threshold were determined for tooth pulp stimuli varying in frequency from 5 to 500 Hz. The effect of frequency and intensity of tooth pulp stimulation on the magnitude of sensations was assessed using visual analog scales and verbal descriptor scales. ⋯ These findings suggest that the non-pain sensations evoked in tooth pulp are mediated by a distinct population of afferents that are not involved in the coding of pain. High frequency stimulation that increased the discharge rate of the lowest threshold pulpal afferents resulted in no summation of non-pain sensation and never produced pain. However, high frequency stimulation evoked greater magnitude sensations at higher stimulus currents, indicating that central summation mechanisms were critical for higher threshold afferents signaling more intense non-pain and pain sensations.