Oral local anesthesia successfully ameliorated neuropathic pain in an upper limb suggesting pain alleviation through neural plasticity within the central nervous system: A case report

Abstract

Neural blockades are considered an alternative to pharmacotherapy for neuropathic pain although these blockades elicit limited effects. We encountered a patient with postbrachial plexus avulsion injury pain, which was refractory to conventional treatments but disappeared temporarily with the administration of the local anesthetic lidocaine around the left mandibular molar tooth during dental treatments. This analgesic effect on neuropathic pain by oral local anesthesia was reproducible. Under conditions of neuropathic pain, cerebral somatotopic reorganization in the sensorimotor cortices of the brain has been observed. Either expansion or shrinkage of the somatotopic representation of a deafferentated body part correlates with the degree of neuropathic pain. In our case, administration of an oral local anesthetic shrank the somatotopic representation of the mouth, which is next to the upper limb representation and thereby expanded the upper limb representation in a normal manner. Consequently, oral local anesthesia improved the pain in the upper limb. This case suggests that pain alleviation through neural plasticity within the brain is related to neural blockade. Copyright © 2011 Jun Hozumi et al.