The researchers found that in comparison with the placebo, patients who had taken the CBM had statistically significant improvements in pain on movement, pain at rest, quality of sleep, inflammation (measured by a Disease Activity Score involving 28 joints DAS 28) and intensity of pain (measured by the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire SF-MPQ).
For instance, on a score of 0-10 where 0 is no pain, CBM patients on average moved from 7 to 4.8 for pain on movement (placebo patients moved from 6.7 to 5.3), 5.3 to 3.1 (placebo 5.3 to 4.1) for pain at rest, and 5.7 to 3.4 (placebo 5.8 to 4.6) for quality of sleep. On the DAS 28 score of 0-10, the CBM patients moved from 5.9 to 5 (placebo 6 to 5.9), and on the SF-MPQ score of 0-100 for intensity of pain at present, the CBM patients moved from 48 to 33, while the placebo patients remained unchanged at 50.
Adverse side effects were mostly mild or moderate (e.g. dizziness, light-headedness, dry mouth, nausea). Of the eight patients who experienced mild dizziness, in four patients this occurred during the initial two-week period when they were gradually increasing the doses, and two occurred two days after this initial period, so these were probably due to patients getting used to the correct dose. No patients taking the CBM had to withdraw from the trial due to adverse side effects, but three did from the placebo group.
Dr Philip Robson, Senior Research Fellow and Consultant Psychiatrist at the Oxford Unive
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Oxford University Press
8-Nov-2005