MONDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with a wrist fracture who take vitamin C daily may be less likely than other patients to develop complex regional pain syndrome, according to the results of a placebo-controlled trial published in the July issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.
Paul E. Zollinger, M.D., of Red Cross Hospital in Beverwijk, the Netherlands, and colleagues randomized 317 patients with 328 wrist fractures to take 200, 500 or 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C daily for 50 days. A control group of 99 wrist fracture patients took a placebo.
The researchers found that 10 of 99 patients (10.1 percent) taking placebo developed the pain syndrome, compared to eight of 328 (2.4 percent) of those taking vitamin C. Only elderly females in the study developed complex regional pain syndrome. Further study showed that four of 96 (4.2 percent) taking 200 mg experienced pain, versus two of 114 (1.8 percent) taking 500 mg, and two of 118 (1.7 percent) taking 1,500 mg vitamin C daily. The pain syndrome was associated with early complaints about casts (relative risk, 5.35).
"The strength of our conclusion is limited by two issues. First, our two vitamin C studies yielded relative risks with wide confidence intervals, which must be interpreted as a lack of precision, limiting the validity of our conclusion," the authors write. "Second, with vitamin C, we prevented a group of symptoms defined by us as complex regional pain syndrome. Due to the lack of precision with this diagnosis, we cannot be sure that we actually prevented complex regional pain syndrome."
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