(Tim Newman/ Medical News Today) — Using computer modeling, researchers have designed a new compound that may help to treat neuropathic pain. In animal trials, it produced immediate, long-lasting therapeutic effects.
Neuropathic pain is a chronic condition wherein people have a heightened sensibility to pain, or hyperalgesia, and feel pain following stimuli that would not usually cause pain, or allodynia.
For some individuals, the pain can come and go, seemingly at random. For others, however, it can be continuous.
The condition affects up to 10 percent of the population of the United States, and there are currently no specific treatments that significantly relieve the discomfort and pain.
As it stands, anti-depressants and anti-epileptics are most commonly used to treat neuropathic pain, but less than 50 percent of people report a significant reduction to their pain. (…)