Abstract

The main objective of this study is to determine the analgesic effect, sleep quality and safety of duloxetine combined with pregabalin in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia. The study participants compromised 90 postherpetic neuralgia patients, who were divided into two groups with 45 patients in each group. Group A (n=45) took duloxetine combined with pregabalin, and group B (n=45) took pregabalin only and the cycle was 12 w. The analgesic effect (nerve sensory conduction velocity, visual analogue scale score, verbal rating scale score), sleep quality (Pittsburgh sleep quality index score) and adverse drug reactions were compared between the two groups. After treatment, the values of various indexes of nerve sensory conduction velocity in group A were higher than those in group B (p<0.05), the scores of visual analogue scale and verbal rating scale in group A were lower than those in group B (p<0.05). The scores of various indexes of Pittsburgh sleep quality index in group A were lower than those in group B (p<0.05) and the incidence of adverse drug reactions was slightly higher than that of group B (p>0.05). Duloxetine combined with pregabalin has good analgesic effect in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia, and has a significant effect on improving sleep quality with high safety.