Hyperthermia in Patients With Chronic Primary Pain - Effects on Thermoregulation, Somatosensory System and Movement Evoked Pain

Launched by BERN UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES · Jul 28, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is exploring whether a treatment called whole-body hyperthermia—where the body is gently warmed using special water-filtered heat—can help people with chronic primary pain conditions like fibromyalgia. The study will look at how this heat treatment affects the body’s natural temperature patterns, the way the nervous system senses pain, and how much pain people feel when they move. The treatment will be given twice a week for three weeks, and the researchers will compare results before and after the treatment.

The study is open to adults who have widespread, ongoing pain lasting more than three months, with a certain level of pain severity measured by doctors. Healthy people without chronic illnesses or infections may also join as a comparison group. If you take certain medications, have serious heart or neurological conditions, or are pregnant or breastfeeding, you would not be eligible. Participants will receive the heat therapy sessions in a controlled setting and will be monitored throughout the study. This trial is not yet recruiting, but it aims to better understand if this warm treatment can improve pain and body temperature regulation in people living with chronic pain.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• patients:
• • Confirmed diagnosis of widespread pain (ICD-11 MG30.01)
• • Widespread Pain Index (WPI) ≥ 7 and Symptom Severity (SS) scale ≥ 5 or WPI) ≥ 3 and SS ≥ 9,
• • Pain \>= 3 month and VAS \>= 4,0
• • Body - infrared-A-Bulb Distance \< 38cm (overweight participants)
• • Signed declaration of consent
• healthy:
• • No chronic illnesses
• • No acute infections
• • No regular medication: To avoid interactions
• • BMI ≤ 40kg/cm2
• • Mental health: No psychiatric diagnoses or psychotropic medication in your medical history
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Participation in other clinical studies
• • Contraindications for hyperthermia (severe cardiovascular diseases, tumour diseases, acute infections, pregnant and breastfeeding women)
• • Acute and / or feverish microbial infections
• • Participants with severe somatic, rheumatic concomitant endocrine or neurological diseases, in particular neurological diseases associated with cognitive disorders, severe liver or kidney and cardiac diseases
• • participants who are permanently treated with opioids, cannabis, immunosuppressive drugs (e.g. corticoids, immunosuppressants) or alpha/beta-A(nta)gonists due to a disease from the group described above
• • participants with pain due to a serious psychiatric illness (bipolar disorder, psychosis, personality disorder, severe depression, substance abuse) and serious systemic or neurological disorders
• • pregnancy or breastfeeding (for women)
• • Intake of medication within 6 weeks that inhibits the reuptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin or binds to receptors of this neurotransmitter group