Articles: pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Double-blind controlled trial of indomethacin as an adjunct to narcotic analgesia after major abdominal surgery.
A prospective randomised trial was undertaken to assess the efficacy of indomethacin as an analgesic after abdominal surgery. 44 patients received indomethacin suppositories (100 mg every 8 h for three days postoperatively) and 46 patients received placebo suppositories (every 8 h for the same period), in addition to intramuscular morphine (0.15 mg/kg every 4 h as required). Postoperative subjective pain assessments, analgesic requirements, and respiratory function were recorded. ⋯ The duration of postoperative morphine requirement was shorter for the indomethacin than for the placebo group. pCO2 on the first postoperative day was lower in the indomethacin group than the placebo group (4.82 +/- 0.08 vs 5.18 +/- 0.08 kPa). The administration of indomethacin in addition to morphine after major abdominal surgery provides better pain control than that provided by intramuscular morphine alone.
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Twelve chronic pain patients were employed in an investigation of the accuracy of memory for chronic pain. Subjects first made pain ratings before entering a treatment program. ⋯ Results show that patients remembered having significantly more pain than they actually rated during the baseline period. Caution is therefore warranted when using post-hoc pain measures with chronic pain patients.
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This article compares the effects of distracting oneself from, versus attending to, the sensations produced by cold-pressor stimulation. Experiment 1 revealed that distraction is a better coping strategy than attention to sensations when subjects are asked to report pain threshold and tolerance. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the hypothesis that distraction is effective because persons hold a commonsense belief in the benefits of distraction as a coping device. ⋯ Distraction reduced distress early in the trial, but attention to sensations proved to be a superior strategy for the last 2 minutes of the trial. It is proposed that distraction and attention to sensations may be differentially effective depending on the duration of the painful stimulus. Possible mediating processes underlying the two strategies are discussed.