Adding a common epilepsy drug to a morphine regimen can result in better pain control with fewer side effects. Moreover, the combination can reduce the dosage of the opioid needed to be effective, according to a team of pain researchers at Indiana University. The result could bring significant relief to many patients with neuropathic pain, a difficult-to-treat condition often felt in the arms and legs and associated with nerve tissue damage. "There is a huge unmet need for better treatments for neuropathic pain," said Fletcher A.
White, Ph.D., the Vergil K. Stoelting Professor of Anesthesia at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In laboratory tests using rodents, White and his colleagues found that while morphine lost its pain-relieving effectiveness three weeks after nerve injury, a combination therapy of morphine and carbamazepine -- used to prevent epileptic seizures -- could…
