Neuralgia

Neuralgia is pain that spreads along the course of a nerve or its branches, sometimes with hyperesthesia of the zone of its innervation.

Most often it is the initial stage of damage to the peripheral nerve or its root.

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Causes neuralgias

The causes can be very different: inflammation (neuritis), trauma, infringement, exogenous and endogenous intoxications, infectious-allergic processes, metabolic and vascular disorders. Most often they are combined with each other, therefore neuralgia is typical for patients of the older age group.

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Symptoms neuralgias

Neuralgia has characteristic symptoms: shooting, stabbing, burning, tearing and other pain that occurs in an attack and completely disappears after it is stopped. In some cases, the pain can be constant with periodic exacerbations. Neuralgia is characterized by a clearly limited localization of the innervation zone of the nerve or root, which distinguishes it from arthralgia and myalgia. Balle's pain points are often detected.

Sensitivity is impaired mildly, in the form of hyperesthesia or hypoesthesia, symptoms of tension of nerve trunks are revealed. Neuralgia can be accompanied by local (reddening or swelling of the skin, increased sweating) or general (sweating, tachycardia, pallor, etc.) vegetative reactions.

In the practice of a surgeon, neuralgia of nerves located in tunnels or having a narrow exit is most often noted, therefore, a sharp increase in pain is revealed upon palpation of the area where the nerve exits the canal and the muscles innervated by this nerve (Tinnel's symptom): radiculalgia developing with injuries and diseases of the spine; intercostal neuralgia associated with pathology of the spine, aorta, visceral processes; Falconer-Wedell syndrome (paresthesia, pain, trophic changes with venous congestion in the area of the hands and forearms), with neurosis of the costoclavicular joint; Roth's disease (pain and paresthesia along the inner thigh, increasing in an upright position), characteristic of damage to the external cutaneous nerve of the thigh; Morton's syndrome (pain and paresthesia in the space between the third and fourth toes, mostly on the sole, may also be on the back, increasing with walking). This neuralgia requires a surgeon to diagnose the cause that caused it, and differential diagnosis with pathology of bones, muscles, vessels and joints.

Diagnostics neuralgias

In all cases, the patient should be consulted by a neurologist.

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