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do people get pain relief from lidocaine patches, like they would from opiate based pain killers?

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I find that Lidoderm or Lidocaine patches work very locally.  IE; the site of the patch on surface nerves.   They do not help for systemic pain or pain that is coming from nerves deep within the body.  

 They were originally designed to treat pain from shingles and Postherpetic Neuralgia.

Those patches are not effective if you have genuine chronic pain. They are nothing in comparison to opioids.

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Lidoderm patches are approved only for post herpetic neuralgia, which is a very specific type of neuropathic pain.  They seem to work well for post herpetic neuralgia, but patients still frequently require narcotics and antidepressants and neurontin or lyrica in addition to lidoderm.  I have had patients report improvement with other types of neuropathic pain like diabetic neruopathy and radiculopathy.  As a single agent, they do not seem to be particularly useful.  There are almost no side effects other than local skin reactions.  They seem to have a fairly good effect on some people with other types of pain, but I suspect that most of this is placebo.  But I'll take a placebo effect anyday as long as it works. 

A little old lady who I have on 12.5mg fentanyl patches for severe osteoarthritis, told me she didn't use her pain patches every day, and so she had given some to a friend whose doctor wouldn't give her anything for arthritis in her knees.  The friend said they worked wonders!  After I almost passed out from shock and anxiety, I found out that she was talking about lidocaine patches that I had given her in the past that she had not found particularly useful herself!