Analysis of blood pressure in elderly patients with postherpetic neuralgia

Author： Kume Takako Hirose Munetaka Yamashita Tomomitsu Mizuno Shoji Hosokawa Toyoshi Sekimoto Miho Kimura Misaka

ISSN： 1568-5691

Source： The Pain Clinic, Vol.13, Iss.2, 2001-06, pp. : 153-157

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Abstract

Increase in arterial blood pressure (BP) reduces perception of acute experimental pain in humans. It might be possible to hypothesize that BP is relatively low in a chronic pain patient who has an increased pain perception. On the other hand, the dysfunction of this inverse relation between BP and pain perception is reported in chronic pain. In the present study we performed two studies to analyze BP in patients suffering from postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). In Study 1, we compared casual BP between elderly patients having PHN (n = 15) and age- and gender-matched pain-free individuals (n = 15). We also evaluated the relation between BP and clinical pain intensity in PHN patients. BP in PHN patients was significantly lower than that in pain-free patients. Clinical pain intensity in PHN patients showed no significant relation with BP. In Study 2 , we performed a physical examination on 120 healthy elderly Japanese volunteers (age > 60 years of age), and evaluated the relationship between hypertension and a history of herpes zoster (HZ). Elderly volunteers who had suffered from HZ (n = 12) showed lower systolic and diastolic BP levels than those who had no history of HZ (n = 108). Logistic regression analysis between hypertensives (n = 59) and normotensives (n = 61) in these volunteers revealed that there is a significant association between the previous history of HZ and hypertension in elderly individuals. These results suggest that previous history of HZ decreases hypertension incidence in the elderly population, and that relatively low BP in elderly PHN patients is a result of HZ infection.