Neuropathic pain is “pain initiated or caused by a primary lesion or dysfunction in the nervous system”. It includes conditions such as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (aka Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, RSD), and is more common than you might think. There is a neuropathic component to many chronic pain conditions. A paper recently published in The Clinical Journal of Pain reports that omega-3 fatty acids helped people with neuropathic pain.

“Five patients with different underlying diagnoses including cervical radiculopathy, thoracic outlet syndrome, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, burn injury were treated with high oral doses of omega 3 fish oil (varying from 2400-7200 mg/day of EPA-DHA).”

In addition to subjective pain scales objective clinical tools including EMG nerve conduction were used to measure the results:

“These patients had clinically significant pain reduction, improved function as documented with both subjective and objective outcome measures up to as much as 19 months after treatment initiation.”

Omega-3 fatty acids are a well-known natural anti-inflammatory medicine; they are also components of neuronal cell membranes. In my clinical experience  it can be very fruitful in neuropathic and other neurological cases to do an essential fatty acid analysis (blood test) to objectively determine fatty acid deficiencies or imbalances—sometimes the results are unexpected and lead to a clinical breakthrough. You may also enjoy reading an interview with the lead author of the study.