Lange, Hannah, Reichert, Julian, Vock, Stephanie et al. · European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026 · DOI
This study tested how people with long COVID perceive and respond to pain compared to healthy people. Researchers applied pressure to participants' legs and measured when they first felt pain and when pain became unbearable. People with long COVID felt pain at lower pressure levels and their pain got worse more quickly than healthy controls, suggesting their nervous systems process pain differently.
This study provides objective psychophysical evidence that long COVID involves altered central pain processing (nociplastic pain), which may explain why many patients experience widespread or disproportionate pain. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for developing targeted pain management therapies for the post-COVID population and validates that pain abnormalities in long COVID have measurable neurobiological underpinnings.
This cross-sectional design cannot establish causation or whether altered pain perception precedes long COVID or develops as a consequence of the illness. The study does not identify the specific mechanisms driving central sensitization or whether these pain processing changes are reversible with treatment. Additionally, findings in a post-COVID population may not fully generalize to ME/CFS patients, though overlap in chronic pain symptoms suggests relevance.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Lange, Hannah, Reichert, Julian, Vock, Stephanie, Hermes, Michelle, Beiner, Eva, Eich, Wolfgang, et al. (2026). Altered Pain Perception and Modulation in Individuals With Post-COVID-Condition: Insights From Quantitative Sensory Testing.. European journal of pain (London, England). https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.70203
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-lange-2026-altered-pain,
author = {Lange, Hannah and Reichert, Julian and Vock, Stephanie and Hermes, Michelle and Beiner, Eva and Eich, Wolfgang and Friederich, Hans-Christoph and Treede, Rolf-Detlef and Tesarz, Jonas},
title = {Altered Pain Perception and Modulation in Individuals With Post-COVID-Condition: Insights From Quantitative Sensory Testing.},
journal = {European journal of pain (London, England)},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1002/ejp.70203},
note = {PubMed: 41699921},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lange-2026-altered-pain},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lange-2026-altered-pain
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