Pain in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system (CNS), beginning most often in late adolescence and early adult life and expressing itself by reccurrent attacks of spinal cord, brainstem, cerebellar, optic nerve and cerebral dysfunction, the result of foci of destrucion of myelinated fibers. Neuropathic pain, such as trigeminal neuralgia might be one of the first symptoms of multiple sclerosis. In this retrospective study we evaluated 290 patients who have been hospitalised at Department of neurology in last three years. According to the results of our study 70% had either an acute or chronic pain syndrome at some time during their disease. Between them 2.7% with acute pain syndroms had episodes of paroxismal pain attacks in distribution of trigeminal nerve. Chronic pain syndromes, occured in 58% of patients and included headache (25%), low back pain (35%) and painful leg spasms in 20% of patients. Our patients were treated with nesteroid antireumatic drugs in case of nociceptive pain, but neuropathic pain was treated with combination of antidepressive and antiepileptic drugs.