Medical doctors today released findings from a six-month study of 1,169 Saudi Arabia-based low back pain patients which conclusively shows that 54.7 percent of participants suffered from neuropathic (nerve) pain as opposed to nociceptive (joint or muscle) pain.
The results were striking for the region’s medical community which has, by its own admission, traditionally diagnosed and treated all low back patients the same way.
The findings, say physicians who administered the study, will now give new confidence to regional doctors to treat low back pain patients with two separate, but entirely complementary, oral therapies – one for nerve pain, the other for muscle and joint pain.
“Most regional doctors treat low back pain as chronic muscle pain, but our study reveals that most low back pain is actually caused by nerve pain, not muscle pain,” said Dr. Abdullah M. Kaki, MD, FRCPC, of the Department of Anasthesia and Critical Care Medicine at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and one of the authors of the study report on low back pain contributors in Saudi-based patients.
“Patients rely on their physicians to identify the specific mechanism causing their pain and to choose the most appropriate treatment for it; therefore, an early and accurate diagnosis of neuropathic [nerve] pain is the first step for effective therapy,” added Dr. Kaki.
According to the Saudi report, factors that are associated with neuropathic pain are: advanced age, female gender, increased height, race, hypertension and diabetes, and a history of smoking, previous back surgery, and previous medications.
“Most of the painful conditions of the back have a sort of nerve involvement, not necessarily nerve entrapment but could be nerve irritation,” said Dr. Wagih El Sissi, Consultant Orthopedic & Head of Orthopedic Department-Sheikh Khalifa Hospital-Ajman.
Dr.El Sissi advices that Back Pain Patients should get a concomitant neuropathic pain treatment along with the anti-inflammatory & analgesic treatment.
Neuropathic vs. Nociceptive Pain
There are two major types of pain: nociceptive and neuropathic. It is helpful to consider nociceptive pain that which one experiences when an injury occurs. It is the pain of a strain, a broken bone or bruise, for example. Nociceptive pain results from either tissue injury or potential tissue injury.
The other type of pain is neuropathic pain which one experiences after a bout of shingles or from a diabetic neuropathy, for example. Neuropathic pain is often described in terms of abnormal sensations such as hot, cold, shocking, burning, or numb.
The challenge, say doctors in response the findings presented from the Saudi low back pain report, is that most low back pain sufferers experience both nociceptive and neuropathic pain.
A novel treatment for nerve pain, Lyrica (pregabalin) works by attaching to nerve cells, reducing the pain signals that cause the shocking, burning, or numb sensations associated with nerve pain.
Lyrica can be taken along with other oral pain therapies such as Celebrex for the treatment of muscle pain, but no common pain management medicines available on the market have been clinically proven to treat nerve pain with the same degree of safety and efficacy as Lyrica.
Lyrica is expected to be available in the United Arab Emirates from September of this year; Celebrex is widely available across the country, and has effectively and safely treated thousands of patients in the UAE since its introduction in 2000.
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