Subcutaneous Lidocaine Infusion for Chronic Widespread Pain: A Chart Review and Survey Examining the Safety and Tolerability of Treatment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Chronic widespread pain (CWP) is characterized by persistent pain across multiple body regions, often accompanied by fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and psychological distress. Background/Objectives: Affecting approximately 10% of the general population, CWP disproportionately impacts women, individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, immigrants, and those with a family history of chronic pain. Standard treatments, including cognitive–behavioral therapy, exercise, and pharmacotherapy, often provide insufficient relief. This study explores a novel approach to treating treatment-resistant CWP: high-dose subcutaneous lidocaine infusions administered over extended periods. Methods: The research included a retrospective chart review and patient survey to evaluate safety and tolerability. The protocol started with a dose of 10–12 mg/kg of adjusted body weight, increasing by 10–15% per month, with a maximum dose of 2000 mg. Results: The chart review of 27 patients revealed mild to moderate adverse events (AEs) in seven patients, with no severe AEs. A survey of 15 patients indicated a higher incidence of AEs; however, all patients reported that the benefits outweighed the negatives. On average, patients experienced 61% pain relief, lasting 19 days per infusion. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that subcutaneous lidocaine infusions are a well-tolerated treatment for CWP, offering substantial pain relief and improving patients’ quality of life.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".