1Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, Koppal Institute of Medical Sciences, Koppal, Karnataka, India
2Associate professor, Department of Physiology, Sambram Institute of Medical Sciences, Kolar Gold Fields, Karnataka, India
3Associate professor, Department of Physiology, Chamarajanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, Chamarajanagar, Karnataka, India
Disturbance of sensory function can be a major feature of neurological illness. Objective measurement of the nature and degree of sensory disturbance is needed to understand and characterize the disorder. Among the many sensory modalities pain is the one which attracts the patient to the physician. Pain is a complex sensory experience. Decrease in pain thresholds, increase in magnitude of sensation is useful for the clinician and researcher. Diabetes Mellitus leads to several recognizable clinic-pathological neuropathic syndromes. Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) likely affects up to one third of adults with diabetes. The current study is designed to evaluate pain thresholds in DPN patients & to compare with non-diabetic healthy subjects.
Thirty diabetic neuropathy patients & thirty non diabetic subjects in the age group of 35–60 years were included for the study. Informed consent & IEC was obtained. The pain a threshold was measured by digital algometer. Subjects were instructed to indicate when the pressure sensation begins to hurt, and they first feel pain, which was noted as the pain threshold.
The pain thresholds were significantly higher in DPN (11.74 ± 4.12) kg/cm2 than in non diabetics (3.02 ± 0.31) kg/cm2 (p<0.05).
Pain threshold is a useful parameter for assessing response to the treatment, but not useful in diagnosis or even as a screening method in diabetic neuropathy patients.
Pain threshold, Algometer, Diabetes Mellitus
