"My Pain Feels Like…" - Pain Perception is as Individual as Pain Patients

AACHEN, Germany, October 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

- A new website helps pain patients to better express and explain how their pain feels like

Pain can appear in many forms and affects people in different ways. One kind of long-lasting or chronic pain results from  a damaged nerve that sends incorrect pain messages to the brain. This pain is called neuropathic pain or nerve pain.

Over 26 million people worldwide suffer from neuropathic pain^[1] but only 40-60% of patients achieve adequate pain relief.^[2]  

The majority, approximately 60%, of neuropathic pain is localised^[3] (localised neuropathic pain, LNP) and is often described as a burning, shooting, lancinating, electric shock like.^[4] But more frequently patients are trying to describe their pain in their own words by using their individual, often very pictographic language.

A correct and early diagnose is crucial to find the right treatment. Therefore patients need to describe their symptoms in as much detail as possible to their doctor.

At the new website http://www.mypainfeelslike.com patients find a questionnaire that helps them to describe in detail how their pain feels like, how it affects their life and where the pain is allocated.

"My pain feels like…" has been developed by Grünenthal GmbH in collaboration with the Montescano Pain School, Italy. For more information please visit http://www.grunenthal.com

About Grünenthal

The Grünenthal Group is an independent, family-owned, international research-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Aachen, Germany. Building on its unique position in pain treatment, its objective is to become the most patient-centric company and thus to be a leader in therapy innovation. Grünenthal is one of the last remaining five research-oriented pharmaceutical companies with headquarters in Germany which sustainably invests in research and development. The research and development costs amounted to a preliminary of about 26 percent of revenues in 2012. Grünenthal's research and development strategy concentrates on selected fields of therapy and state-of-the-art technologies. We are intensely focused on discovering new ways to treat pain better and more effectively, with fewer side-effects than current therapies. Altogether, the Grünenthal Group has affiliates in 26 countries worldwide. Grünenthal products are sold in more than 155 countries and today approx. 4,400 employees are working for the Grünenthal Group worldwide. In 2012, Grünenthal achieved preliminary revenues of € 973 mn. More information: http://www.grunenthal.com.

References:

1 Pal M et al (2009). Vanilloid receptor antagonists: emerging class of novel anti-inflammatory agents for pain management. Curr Pharm Des 15:1008-26

2 Dworkin RH, O'Connor AB, Backonja M, et al (2007). Pharmacologic management of neuropathic pain: evidence-based recommendations. Pain;132:237-51

3 Mick G et al (2012). What is localised neuropathic pain? A first proposal to characterise and define a widely used term. Pain manage 2(1), 71-77

4 Woolf C et al (1999). Neuropathic pain: aetiology, symptoms, mechanisms, and management. Lancet; 353:1959-64

Contact: Jeanette Hübsch, Grünenthal Europe & Australia
Phone: +49-241-569-1487, email: jeanette.huebsch@grunenthal.com