Hyperesthesia

What it means

Increased sensitivity to stimulation, excluding the special senses, which may refer to various modes of cutaneous sensibility including touch and thermal sensation without pain, as well as to pain.

Hyperesthesia is a common symptom of neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory system. The neuropathic pain phenotype contains a spectrum of symptoms that can be roughly categorized into positive and negative symptoms. Hyperesthesia is a positive symptom of neuropathic pain. Positive symptoms are categorized as stimulus-dependent pain, stimulus-independent pain, and paresthesias.

Rare diseases that can present with this14

The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.

Part of the broader category

Also called: Hyperaesthesia