A Case of Thalamic Pain Successfully Treated with Kampo Medicine

Objective: Thalamic pain, one of the central painful poststroke symptoms, is a severe pain that is often intractable. A case of thalamic pain successfully treated with Kampo medicine is presented.

Subject: A 65-year-old woman complained of moderate continuous and paroxysmal severe pain in the right upper and lower limbs after she had suffered from stroke. She also complained of sensory disturbance and intermittent involuntary movement. A magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain showed an old infarction in the left thalamus.

Interventions And Outcome: Paroxetine was administered, but it was stopped because of nausea. Etizolam was effective in reducing the pain for only about 30 minutes. Sokeikakketsuto decoction, one of the Kampo medicines, was administered orally on the basis of Kampo diagnostic criteria. Ten (10) days later, the pain had almost disappeared, and the other symptoms had also improved.

Conclusions: This result suggested that Sokeikakketsuto could be an option for the treatment of thalamic pain under certain conditions.