NeuroTalk Support Groups - View Single Post - Lidoderm Patches on PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY SITE

mrsD · 02-20-2009, 08:18 AM

in the past when Lidoderm was new... this doctor problem was
common. Unless doctors get visited by a drug rep/salesperson they won't use a drug these days. It has been my experience that doctors WILL NOT in general research themselves!

But today, there are many using the Lidoderm patches.
The patches are trickey and you have to place them properly, for best effect and even the drug company does not help with this aspect.

Google Lidoderm studies...and print them out and take to your
out of date doctor. That is what I did.
In nursing homes today and rehab institutions, Lidoderms are very heavily used.

If your doctor is that behind the times, I wonder what else he is not doing for YOU!.

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine...hritis-3414-1/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

Quote:

Pain Med. 2002 Dec;3(4):361-5.Links
Use of lidocaine patch 5% for chronic low back pain: a report of four cases.
Hines R, Keaney D, Moskowitz MH, Prakken S.

Bay Area Pain Medical Associates, Mill Valley, California 94941, USA.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the use of the lidocaine patch 5% (Lidoderm), a targeted peripheral analgesic, in treatment of patients with chronic low back pain. DESIGN: This retrospective case series examines four patients with pain secondary to spinal degeneration and complications from failed back surgery syndrome, who were prescribed the lidocaine patch as an add-on to their analgesic regimen. SETTING: Bay Area Pain Medical Associates, Mill Valley, California. PATIENTS: Patients (age range: 33-64 years) were all complicated cases in which multiple analgesics had been prescribed with varying degrees of success. Intervention. Lidocaine patch 5%. RESULTS: The addition of the lidocaine patch helped relieve varying characteristics of pain, including general pain, shooting pain, burning pain, and allodynia, and had a significant impact on the quality of life of all patients. Some patients were able to reduce or altogether stop some medications. No adverse events were reported from the lidocaine patch. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our experience with the four cases presented here and with other patients in our clinic, we believe that addition of the lidocaine patch 5% to the analgesic regimen in chronic low back pain may be beneficial. Prospective, controlled clinical trials are planned to further evaluate the efficacy and safety of the lidocaine patch for treatment of chronic low back pain with or without a neuropathic component.

PMID: 15099246 [PubMed]

Notice the above study was from 2002!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15563743?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez. Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.P ubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedarticles& logdbfrom=pubmed

Quote:

Curr Med Res Opin. 2004;20 Suppl 2:S21-8.Click here to read Links
Effectiveness of the lidocaine patch 5% on pain qualities in three chronic pain states: assessment with the Neuropathic Pain Scale.
Argoff CE, Galer BS, Jensen MP, Oleka N, Gammaitoni AR.

Cohn Pain Management Center, North Shore University Hospital/NYU School of Medicine, Bethpage, NY 11714, USA. pargoff@optonline.net

OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of the lidocaine patch 5% on pain qualities associated with chronic pain from postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), painful diabetic neuropathy (DN), and low-back pain (LBP), using the Neuropathic Pain Scale (NPS). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with PHN, painful DN, and LBP were enrolled if they had partial response to gabapentin-containing analgesic regimens and if they reported moderate-to-severe pain on the NPS at study enrollment. Eligible patients were included in an open-label, non-randomized, prospective, 2-week study across 7 clinical trial sites in the United States. The lidocaine patch 5% was applied to the area of maximal pain, using no more than a total of 4 patches changed every 24 h. Patients were maintained on their other analgesic regimens with no dose adjustment or additions allowed. Treatment effect was measured by change from baseline to Week 2 in 4 composite measures of the NPS: NPS-10, NPS-4, NPS-8, and NPS-non-allodynia. Safety was assessed by adverse events (AEs), dermal assessment of application site(s), and skin sensory testing. RESULTS: In the combined patient population (n = 77), 2 weeks of treatment with the lidocaine patch 5% significantly improved all 4 composite measures (p < 0.01). In the subgroup analyses, the lidocaine patch 5% demonstrated numerical advantage for all 4 NPS composite measures for the PHN patients (n = 8), and significantly improved all 4 composite measures for the painful DN patients (n = 41; p < 0.001) and LBP patients (n = 28; p < or = 0.005). Overall, 8 patients (10%) experienced mild-to-moderate treatment-related AEs. CONCLUSIONS: The lidocaine patch 5% effectively reduces the intensity of all common pain qualities in patients with moderate-to-severe chronic pain resulting from PHN, painful DN, or LBP. Treatment is well tolerated in combination with other analgesic regimens, with no reports of serious AEs or adverse drug interactions. Assessment scales such as the NPS may offer the possibility to differentiate between various pain states and to assess treatment outcomes for various pain qualities associated with a given pain state.

PMID: 15563743 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I am not sure about the application that was used in the above study.
At this time max of 3 patches a day, and use on the body for 12 hrs on and off 12 hrs
is the recommended method. I have never used more than one a day myself.
1/2 of a patch is still pretty strong if placed correctly for that particular pain spot.

I had a very painful lateral femoral nerve injury in my thigh from a C-section years before.
Nothing worked on it, and it was like 100 bee stings! Using the patch daily for 2 weeks put that nerve to sleep and it is a miracle for me! The pain is GONE! (it twinges now and then if I overexend the leg during exercise, but I never have that original pain anymore). I think that nerve was just firing...."just because"...and once that cycle was interrupted for a while, it stopped. I had it for YEARS...almost a decade!