J Korean Pain Soc.  2001 Jun;14(1):98-103.

Thermographic Changes by Administering Gabapentin in Neuropathic Pain: A report of three cases

• Lee JW
• Kim JS
• Bae DK
• Park W

Abstract

Neuropathic pain originating from multiple condition of nerve cell injury is common, but is difficult to treat. Even though many drugs such as anti-convulsants, anti-depressants, NSAIDs, opioids have been used, their clinical analgesic action were not satisfactory due to occur severe side effects. Gabapentin was introduced in 1994 as a novel antiepileptic drug and has been used to treat partial seizure. After 1995 gabapentin treatment for reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) started, 45% of the reports about the analgesic efficacy of gabapentin were restricted to the treatments of non-epileptic pain syndrome. This drug is preferred to treat neuropathic pain because of a lower incidence of its side effects than those of other anti-convulsants and anti-depressants. For evaluating it's analgesic efficacy, the changes in the patients' subjective pain intensity was measured by the score on the visual analogue scale (VAS) and patient's objective pain intensity by measuring the skin temperature via infrared thermography were investigated respectively. Side effects of gabapentin were look into. We observed successful relief of neuropathic pain in the three patients which included post-herpetic neuraligia, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and diabetic neuropathic pain, and the side effects of gabapentin were at acceptable levels.

Keyword

Analgesics; Anticonvulsant; Gabapentin; Neuropathic pain

MeSH Terms

Analgesics
Analgesics, Opioid
Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal
Humans
Incidence
Neuralgia*
Neurons
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
Seizures
Skin Temperature
Thermography
Analgesics
Analgesics, Opioid
Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal