Subjects or Fibromyalgia Patients?
J Pain. 2009 Sep 25. [Epub ahead of print]
Staud R, Robinson ME, Price DD.
Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
PMID: 19783222
We previously reported that 3 different electronic visual analogue
and numerical pain scales are useful in providing refined capacity to
discriminate discrete levels of pain intensity. Using the same
subjects and scales, we now investigated whether pain scaling is
influenced by past pain events and by recalled memories of these
events in the rating of pain.
Normal control subjects (NC: 19 male, 30 female) and female
fibromyalgia (FM) (n = 17) patients received 5-second suprathreshold
heat stimuli (45-49 degrees C) to both forearms. The participants
rated these experimental heat stimuli using the previously described
electronic pain scales. Subsequently, they were asked to report
whether they used any prior pain experiences during the process of
rating their pain.
Out of 49 NC, only 6 females (12.2%) and 7 males (14.3%), and out of
17 FM patients, only 3 females (17.6%) stated that they had used past
pain experiences during scaling. Notably, pain ratings of
experimental heat stimuli did not statistically differ between
subjects who used past pain experiences during scaling as compared to
those who did not. Furthermore, ratings of their most severe past
pains were not significantly correlated with ratings of experimental
pain stimuli.
These results do not provide support for the strong assertion that
pain rating scales are elastic, ie, being used differently depending
on the severity of past pain events such as childbirth.
PERSPECTIVE: Less than 25% of subjects used memories of past pain
events during pain scaling. In addition, if they were used, these
pain memories did not influence pain scaling with electronic eVAS and
eNUM scales. Thus, use of these scales allows reliable comparisons of
experimental and clinical pain ratings within and between subjects.
---------------------------------------------
Send posts to CO-CURE@listserv.nodak.edu
Unsubscribe at http://www.co-cure.org/unsub.htm
Too much mail? Try a digest version. See http://www.co-cure.org/digest.htm
---------------------------------------------
Co-Cure's purpose is to provide information from across the spectrum of
opinion concerning medical, research and political aspects of ME/CFS and/or
FMS. We take no position on the validity of any specific scientific or
political opinion expressed in Co-Cure posts, and we urge readers to
research the various opinions available before assuming any one
interpretation is definitive. The Co-Cure website <www.co-cure.org> has a
link to our complete archive of posts as well as articles of central
importance to the issues of our community.
---------------------------------------------
