Note: NOT seeking diagnosis, opinion, or other matter requiring advanced education.
I have osteoarthritis. Fact, confirmed by relevant testing and referrals. Yes, it is the stuff of nightmares, thank you for your sympathy.
In trying to wade through it, I find myself unable to even comprehend simple Wiki-level info.
So: is what I’m feeling what is known as “neuropathic pain”? I’m at a fork-in-the-road, and this one has me stumped.
Answer, please?
Thanks!
Probably not in a real signficant way for most sufferers. Though there is ongoing discussion as to whether OA has a component of neuropathic pain to it after OA pain has been present long enough. (Rowbotham MC, Kidd BL, Porreca F: Role of central sensitization in chronic pain: Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis compared to neuropathic pain. In Proceedings of the 11th World Congress on Pain. August 21 – 26th 2005, Sydney, Australia. Edited by: Flor H, Kalso E, Dostrovsky J. Seattle; IASP Press; 2006. )
Most effective pain management strategies for OA pain do not employ neuropathic pain treatments as primary modalities. And studies I’ve seen have tended thus far to show that neuropathic meds don’t signficantly change OA pain for most sufferers.
Thanks!
FWIW, add 1 to number of patients not responding to neuropathic therapies (assuming Gabapentin counts as a neuropathic therapy). Pain onset: March 2005.
Yes, you may scratch your head as to why it would have been prescribed. I don’t think he believed my testamony re diagnosis.
(I was new in town, and my consumption of 1 sch 2, plus 2 sch 3’s probalby set off an alarm or two. But, when a nominally soft-tissue diseae shows up in X-rays, even skeptics take note.)
Well, to be fair, I have just uncovered some more expert opinion on the topic, which feels that both nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain play roles in OA. And the nice thing about gabapentin is that it is such a safe medication, compared to NSAIDS, opiates, and acetaminophen, that it does sort of cry out to be tried for a chronic pain situation, where there are often sub-optimal options.
OK, I tried, but, not suprisingly (given that wiki stumped me to begin with), I am not going to be able to comprehend that article.
The explanation offered with the gabapentin 'script was that, after sending a constant signal along the same nerve pathway, the nerves “burn in” and produce the pain with or without cause.
That didn’t sound too likely to me - does that article support any such theory?
Thank you for your time and your concern.
That’s not an unreasonable layman’s explanation for what may happen to pain nerves that are constantly being triggered. And the article does tend to support it.
Much still needs to be learned about pain physiology, however.