Author's experience of lateral medullary infarction--thermal perception and muscle allodynia.

The patient, the author (S.K.), is a 67-year-old male. He has the typical dissociated pain, altered temperature sensation and ataxia often encountered by patients with lateral medullary infarction. This started at the time of his admission to hospital. Several weeks after discharge, he experienced the withdrawal reaction to high temperature, first mentioned by Rousseaux (Stroke 30 (1999) 2223), and movement allodynia as described by Bowsher (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 61 (1996) 62). The article describes his personal experience of the symptoms of central post-stroke pain and allodynia. A difference between muscle allodynia and conventional allodynia caused by dermal stimulation is proposed. Follow-up evaluation of sensory symptoms that appear several weeks after discharge is essential to ensure measures to alleviate them are provided.