Drugs for Nerve Pain
This section about drugs for nerve pain
is not intended as a comprehensive source of medical information,
but as a hub for links to other more detailed sources.
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Nerve pain or neuropathic pain is caused by nerve damage
or nerve disease. The pain is often aching, burning or shooting
in nature.
- Drugs can be used to treat neuropathic pain. There are
3 types of drugs:
Anti-depressants eg. amitriptyline, which were developed
to treat depression, have long been used "off licence" to
treat nerve pain.
- Anti-convulsants or anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) such as
carbamazepine, developed to control fits in epilepsy have
long been used to treat nerve pain. Newer anticonvulsants
such as gabapentin and pregabalin are licensed in the UK
for the treatment of neuropathic pain.
- Opioids such as tramadol are sometimes useful in some
people for nerve pain.
These drugs are available on prescription and may have side-effects.
Nerve pain is difficult to treat and the best result is often
only 50% pain reduction. Patience is needed in trying out
various drug combinations to get the best pain reduction and
least side effects. These drugs often need to be taken for
several years.
If you have a pain problem, which needs treatment you
should contact your own doctor who can refer you to a pain
clinic in your area. This site is for information only and
cannot be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of
your own doctor. The Pain Relief Foundation is not able to
offer individual medical advice.
Dealing with Pain Series: Drugs for Nerve Pain
The Pain Relief Foundation has produced it's own leaflet
containing some simple information on strong opioids for
chronic pain which is available to download in PDF format:-
N.B. Requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view. If you don't have
the Acrobat reader you can download it here
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Useful Websites:
There are many sites on the World Wide Web offering information
to people about chronic pain and its treatment. The suggested
links, to websites providing such information, from this website
are considered by the doctors at the Pain Relief Foundation
to be useful and informative. If you know of a good web site
about chronic pain then we would be pleased to hear your recommendation.
The Pain Relief Foundation is not responsible for the
content of these web sites, and does not endorse any commercial
product or service mentioned or advised on these sites.
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