An unusual presentation of neuropathic pain following cervical spinal cord injury: a case report

BMC Neurology

卷:20

Mathieu Boudier-Revéret¹  Yoo Jin Choo²  Min Cheol Chang²  Ming-Yen Hsiao³ 

[1] Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal;

[2] Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University;

[3] Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University;

关键词: Neuropathic pain;    Spinal cord injury;    Central cord syndrome;    Occipital headache;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12883-020-01644-0

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract Background We report a patient with unusual occipital neuropathic pain (at-level neuropathic pain) due to a small central cervical spinal cord injury (SCI). Case presentation A 50-year-old man presented with severe bilateral occipital pain after falling from a height of 2 m, 2 weeks ago. The degree of pain was evaluated to be 9 out of 10 using the numeric rating scale (NRS). The nature of the pain was tingling, burning, and piercing, and hyperalgesia was present over the bilateral posterior head regions. Greater occipital nerve block with bupivacaine and dexamethasone was not effective. On axial T2-cervical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a focal high signal change was observed in the central portion of the spinal cord at the C2 level. We deliberated that the patient’s pain was due to the SCI observed on MRI, and after administration of oral medications, the NRS pain score reduced from 9 to 2. Conclusions Neuropathic pain caused by SCI varies according to the location and degree of injury of the pain-related neural tracts; therefore, clinicians should closely observe the pain patterns and findings on imaging in patients with SCI to determine the cause of pain accurately.

【 授权许可】

Unknown