Pain after nerve injuries (author's transl)
After cut injuries to nerves, about 70% of the persons injured are stricken with painful hypersensitivity, and at least 50% with non-causalgic pain. Clinical reports on peace-time injuries have had scarce regard to both forms. In about 80% of the injured, the painful hypersensitivity sets in within 6 months of the surgical reconstruction and ceases in half of the the patients up to the end of the second year; in the other half the disturbances seem to persist much longer. Non-causalgic pain commence earlier than the painful hypersensitivity, often already shortly after the trauma. Complete remission of this pain is rare. In the event of greater intensity, both painful hypersensitivity and non-causalgic pain entail the risk of abuse of analgesics. As to differential diagnosis, non-causalgic pain must be discriminated from genuine causalgia in which continuous pain is superimposed by paroxysms of pain.