Pain sensitisation in patients with sickle cell disease: A preliminary study.

Background: Responses to experimental pain have suggested central and peripheral sensitisation in adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). Recent studies have proposed an algometry-derived dynamic measure of pain sensitisation, slowly repeated evoked pain (SREP), which is useful in the discrimination of painful conditions related to central sensitisation. Pain and fatigue are two symptoms that affect the general functioning of patients with SCD most significantly, however, research about experimental dynamic pain measures and their relation to the main symptoms of SCD (pain and fatigue) is still scarce.

Blunted sudomotor reactivity in fibromyalgia is associated with levels of depression.

Objectives: Assessment of sudomotor function by distal electrochemical skin conductance (ESC) can provide an index of peripheral neuropathy. This study explored ESC in fibromyalgia (FM) patients, controlling for tricyclic antidepressant use and body mass index, and its association with the clinical severity of the disease.

Methods: ESC, clinical symptoms and an index of central pain sensitisation derived from pressure algometry were explored in thirty-three fibromyalgia patients and 33 healthy women.

Central sensitisation pain and autonomic deficiencies in fibromyalgia.

Objectives: Fibromyalgia (FM) is associated with central pain sensitisation, autonomic alterations and neuropathy in small nerve fibres. This study aimed to analyse the association between tonic sweating and central pain sensitisation in FM.

Methods: Fifty-eight FM patients and thirty healthy women were assessed in terms of slowly repeated evoked pain (SREP), as a measure of central sensitisation.