Research into the role of the brain in chronic pain
Evidence has been accumulating that shows that people with chronic pain have modifications in body awareness. For example patients suffering from CRPS express feelings of foreignness towards their painful body part, distorted sense of size and shape, and difficulty determining the position of the affected limb (e.g., Lewis, Kersten, McCabe, … [Read more...]
When I remember primary school, I remember one of my teachers cutting snot out of his nose with a pair of scissors when he thought no-one was looking. When I remember high school, I remember teachers saying two things, mainly. "Lorimer, LORIMER, are you with us?" and "Well you certainly have a good imagination..." In fact, imagining things … [Read more...]
Some time ago, I wrote this paper, at the request of the journal Physical Therapy Reviews, on reconceptualising pain. It is a little old now but it has come to be a bit of a position paper. The position has four fundamentals, none of which will be very surprising to anyone I imagine: (i) pain does not provide a measure of the state of the … [Read more...]
I had the honour of spending the past week with the brilliant and extremely pleasant folks of the Body in Mind group at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). The type of work going on here is the definition of cutting edge in my opinion, and I’m sure I was only introduced to a small part of it. I’m calling it right here right now, look … [Read more...]
This is yet another important study from the TREND group in the Netherlands. Bob van Hilten, one of that rare breed who is both terrifically successful and remarkably nice, a generous, physical and intellectual sequoia of a man, wrote this little blurb below. As far as my meagre resources can decipher, it provides good evidence that the most likely … [Read more...]
The last post described a new paper in BMC Neurology suggesting guidelines for the treatment of CRPS. They also discussed prevention. They concluded that people who fracture their wrist should be given 500 mg daily vitamin C because two RCT's show a reduction in incidence of CRPS in those who do this[1,2] both papers from the same group as the … [Read more...]
BMC Neurology has just published the findings of a group of Dutch researchers in their quest to develop multidisciplinary guidelines for treatment of CRPS[1]. They looked at literature from 1980 - 2005. It is a major piece of work and I reckon it deserves publication. It is also a shocker when one produces such a monumental piece of work to … [Read more...]
From a biological perspective, I find CRPS very perplexing. So do many other people—the community of scientists that are pursuing better treatments, through a better understanding of the basic mechanisms, or by developing better animal models of CRPS, or by undertaking clinical investigations and clinical trials, stretches across … [Read more...]
What is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome? Well, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is exactly that Complex: Many, many different problems have been identified in people with CRPS. These problems can be severe and usually involve many of our biological systems. This makes the situation complex. Regional: The symptoms of CRPS are almost … [Read more...]
Oaklander and Fields did a comprehensive review of the literature concerning the role of small-fibre neuropathy in complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)[1]. We wrote a response to this article in the Annals of Neurology to say that the review builds on a body of elegant work by Oaklander’s group, and others, and presents a compelling … [Read more...]
Reflex sympathetic dystrophy society of America TREND CRPS research consortium, The Netherlands Medpedia: CRPS in plain English CRPS UK RSD Canada Dutch guidelines on treatment for CRPS … [Read more...]
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