Characteristics of Chronic Pain Patients Who Take Opioids and Persistently Report High Pain Intensity.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that patients with persistently high pain scores despite opioid therapy are more likely than those with lower levels of pain to present with characteristics associated with having centralized pain. This study cannot determine whether these characteristics were present before (fibromyalgia-like patient) or after the initiation of opioids (opioid-induced hyperalgesia). Regardless, patients with a centralized pain phenotype are thought to be less responsive to opioids and may merit alternative approaches. PMID: 24310048 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Pain Physician - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Reg Anesth Pain Med Source Type: research