Effects of Osteopathic Care on patients suffering with pudendal neuralgia: a prospective monocentric study

Abstract

Introduction. Pudendal neuralgia is a canal syndrome. Patients present, among other symptoms, with chronic neuropathic pain, allodynia and dyspareunia; the chronicity of which impact their everyday life.The goal of research — is to measure the impact of osteopathic care on pudendal neuralgia′s pain.Materials and methods. Four females and eight males suffering from pudendal neuralgia received two osteopathic treatments within 15 days. Pain was the main outcome measure. We assessed pain through a simple verbal pain rating scale. The scale was used on three occasions: before the first session, before the second one and 15 days later.Results. 10 out of 12 patients find their pain decreased by 40 % or more. On inclusion, the main pain level is 6,3, before the second session it goes down to 4,5, then to 2,5 after 15 days. This decrease is very highly significant (p<0,0001). Every patient from this study would recommended this approach to a friend suffering from this neuralgia.Conclusion. Osteopathy seems to be interesting to consider in the global management of pudendal neuralgia. A comparative randomized trial would be necessary to confirm these first results. It would be interesting to compare results obtained with the osteopathic protocol with results from transcutaneous neuroelectric stimulation in order to assess if the action of osteopathy is linked with pain perception only.