Effective Treatment of Intractable Pain in Three Rehabilitation Patients Using Sokeikakketsuto / 日本東洋医学雑誌

ABSTRACT

Rehabilitation and exercise are occasionally restricted by intractable pain to an extent greater than that estimated due to physical dysfunction. Here, we report three patients with intractable pain in whom Kampo medicine was highly effective, in cases where common treatments such as the administration of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and nerve blockade proved ineffective. Sokeikakketsuto extract was prescribed for three patients with different conditions intermittent claudication of cauda equina due to lumbar spondylolisthesis, posttraumatic chronic psychogenic pain, and complex regional pain syndrome type 1 that occurred after cerebral infarction. Sokeikakketsuto extract alleviated severe pain and therefore facilitated rehabilitation and exercise in all three of these cases. From the viewpoint of Kampo medicine, we hypothesized that all three cases shared some common etiology of blood abnormalities, although conventional medical diagnosis differed for each. We suggest that treatment with Sokeikakketsuto extract corrected the blood abnormalities, thereby resulting in the successful treatment of intractable pain in these patients.