by Mary Elizabeth Dallas
HealthDay Reporter
Fat Loss Injection - Lidocaine Injection May Help Treat Fibromyalgia, Study Suggests
Tuesday, (Health News) - The pain of fibromyalgia can be relieved with injections of the Lidocaine analgesic, a new study suggests.
People with fibromyalgia complain of chronic pain throughout their body, as well as an increase in pain sensitivity. Doctors have difficulty treating this pain because it is not clear what causes study authors observed.
In the new study, injecting lidocaine into peripheral tissues - such as shoulder muscles or buttocks - effectively reduced pain sensitivity, researchers discovered.
"We hypothetize that if the pain comes from peripheral tissues, and we can take this pain injecting local anesthetics, so this would be an indirect proof of the importance of the peripheral tissues for the clinical pain of these individuals," said the Dr.'s main author Roland Staud, professor of medicine at the University of Florida, said in a communication of university news.
"over-the-" drug counters and [narcotics] prescriptions as opioids are not really effective to control chronic pain conditions, "he added. But with new therapy," Pain of chronic patients better and we manage better, "Staud said." We are making progress, but it will take time. "
The study involved 62 women with fibromyalgia. Each woman received four injections: two in certain muscles on her shoulders and two more in her buttocks. Some of the women received injections of lidocaine, while a "control group" received saline injections.
Before injections have been supplied and 30 minutes later, women received light stimuli from pain delivered through mechanical means or through heat.
Compared to saline injections "manikin", lidocaine significantly decreased the sensitivity of women to pain, according to the study recently published in the European Journal of Pain.
The researchers observed, however, that both lidocaine and placebo resulted in a 38% reduction in pain or near the point of injury.
But chronic pain affects the body differently than a specific injury, such as a broken leg, the authors of the study pointed out. Chronic pain, they explained, actually alter the nervous function along the spinal cord.
"The best way to treat chronic pain conditions is ... [by] Looking at emotional, sensory and tissue damage," Michael Robinson, director of the University of Florida Center for Pain Research and Behavioral Health, said At a news launch university. "We know there are central and peripheral and behavioral components for someone saying: 'Ow, it hurts'"
Cancer survivors who experience pain, for example, can associate it with their disease and fears about their prognosis - even if it is treated and remission.
"This sensation may feel more painful than if they thought it was a muscle adjusted," Robinson explained.
Two fibromyalgia experts were not sure about the meaning of discoveries, however.
"There was no significant difference between the reduction of pain in placebo versus the treatment group - This means that no matter what the injection product is, but the injection act itself may be the cause of the Reduction of pain, "said Dr. Wasem Mir, Rheumatologist at Lenox. Hill Hill in New York.
"You can then argue that the reduction of pain was placebo," he said. "To examine the placebo point, another arm in the experiment may need to be introduced where patients are not being injected, but taking a placebo pill."
dr. Houman Danesh is Director of Integrative Pain Management at Hospital do Monte Sinai in New York. He said that "fibromyalgia is a complex disorder where patients are more sensitive to pain. It is diagnosed mainly by a rheumatologist by tapping 18 diagnostic pressure points, and if 11 of them are sensitive, then the diagnosis is done." "This study offers a vision of a potential taxpayer for fibromyalgia and a possible treatment," Danesh said. "It is interesting to note that the points that were used were acupuncture points, therefore suggesting acupuncture as a possible treatment to help patients with fibromyalgia."
