Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a heterogeneous condition with a number of pathophysiological mechanisms that appear to contribute to symptom chronicity. One of these is altered pain sensitivity.
Methods: Women between ages 18-45 were recruited the community. Of those enrolled, 56 had IBS and 36 were healthy control (HC) women. Participants completed questionnaires, kept a 4-week symptom diary and had a 12-h Holter placed to assess nighttime heart rate variability including high frequency power (HF), low frequency power (LF), and total power (TP). At mid-follicular phase approximately 80% of women completed a thermal pain sensitivity test with conditioned pain modulation and visceral pain sensitivity using a water load symptom provocation (WLSP) test.
Key results: As expected, daily abdominal pain was significantly higher in the IBS compared to HC group. There were no differences between the bowel pattern subgroups (IBS-diarrhea [IBS-D], IBS-constipation plus mixed [IBS-CM]). Thermal pain sensitivity did not differ between the IBS and the HC groups, but was significantly higher in the IBS-CM group than the IBS-D group. In the WLSP test, the IBS group experienced significantly more symptom distress than HCs and the IBS-CM group was higher than the IBS-D group. Heart rate variability indicators did not differ between the groups or IBS subgroups. Daily abdominal pain was positively correlated with LF and TP in the IBS group.
Conclusions & inferences: Despite similar levels of abdominal pain in IBS, the IBS-CM group demonstrated greater sensitivity to both thermal and visceral testing procedures.
Keywords: autonomic nervous system; conditioned pain modulation; heart rate variability; irritable bowel syndrome; water load symptom provocation test.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.