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Common Meanings of Living with Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathic Pain from the Perspective of Patients

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Meanings of Pain

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Abstract

Contemporary pain medicine is necessary to explain pain and to help in its treatment; yet, preference for biomedical explanation of pain in the field has meant that attention to the personal experience of pain and to the meanings of pain experience remain a blind spot in knowledge. Thus, the pain literature includes limited information about the common meanings of living with diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain (DPNP) from the perspective of patients. The purpose of this chapter is to describe some of the common meanings of pain in patients with DPNP, as currently reported in the literature, how these meanings interact with other common factors in pain experience, including specific negative emotions or moods (depression, anxiety, anger), or the psychosocial context surrounding pain, and to describe available evidence on the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for patients with DPNP. Further quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research is needed to more fully understand common experiences of pain in patients with DPNP, and the common meanings ascribed to these experiences.

Clinical Implications: Pain in patients with DPNP involves a range of threatening pain sensations, including sensations with burning, shooting, tingling, or cramping qualities, and additional more cognitive meanings linked to persistent pain, including a sense that pain disrupts daily life in an intrusive way. Pain affects many aspects of daily experience that are meaningful to patients with DPNP; some describe ongoing physical difficulties, others describe work-related problems or challenges in sexual intimacy. Given the heavy personal burden that DPNP imposes on patients and the considerable challenge of managing the condition pharmacologically, clinical use of non-pharmacological therapies such as CBT for painful diabetic neuropathy might be warranted in individual patients.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Dr. Simon van Rysewyk for comments and edits of an earlier draft of this chapter.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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  1. Faculty of Nursing, Medical Nursing Department, Hacettepe University, Altindag, Ankara, Turkey

    Zehra Gok Metin

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Correspondence to Zehra Gok Metin .

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  1. School of Humanities, Department of Philosophy and Gender Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Simon van Rysewyk

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Gok Metin, Z. (2019). Common Meanings of Living with Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathic Pain from the Perspective of Patients. In: van Rysewyk, S. (eds) Meanings of Pain. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24154-4_11

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