Review Examines Clinical Trial Evidence on Complementary Approaches for Five Painful Conditions | NCCIH
A review of evidence from clinical trials shows that a variety of complementary health approaches —including acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, massage therapy, and relaxation techniques—hold promise for helping to manage pain. The review, conducted by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, was published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.Painful conditions are the most common reasons why American adults use complementary health approaches, on which they spend more than $30 billion yearly. About 40 million American adults experience severe pain in any given year, and they spend more than $...
Source: Psychology of Pain - September 3, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
In Search Of An Opioid That Offers Help Without The Risks : Shots - Health News : NPR
Once people realized that opioid drugs could cause addiction and deadly overdoses, they tried to use newer forms of opioids to treat the addiction to its parent. Morphine, about 10 times the strength of opium, was used to curb opium cravings in the early 19th century. Codeine, too, was touted as a nonaddictive drug for pain relief, as was heroin.Those attempts were doomed to failure because all opioid drugs interact with the brain in the same way. They dock to a specific neural receptor, the mu-opioid receptor, which controls the effects of pleasure, pain relief and need.Now scientists are trying to create opioid painkille...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 20, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
The Connoisseur of Pain - The New York Times
Within minutes of our first meeting, and more or less in response to my saying good morning, Justin Schmidt began lamenting our culture ' s lack of insect-based rites of passage. He told me about the Sater é-Mawé people in northwestern Brazil, who hold a ceremony in which young men slip their hands into large mitts filled with bullet ants, whose stings are so agonizing they can cause temporary paralysis; when initiates pass the test, they ' re one step closer to becoming full members of society. Schmidt believes we could learn something from this. By trade, he is an entomologist, an expert on the Hymenoptera o...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 20, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
NYTimes: Minorities Suffer From Unequal Pain Treatment
Roslyn Lewis was at work at a dollar store here in Tuscaloosa, pushing a heavy cart of dog food, when something popped in her back: an explosion of pain. At the emergency room the next day, doctors gave her Motrin and sent her home.Her employer paid for a nerve block that helped temporarily, numbing her lower back, but she could not afford more injections or physical therapy. A decade later, the pain radiates to her right knee and remains largely unaddressed, so deep and searing that on a recent day she sat stiffly on her couch, her curtains drawn, for hours.The experience of African-Americans, like Ms. Lewis, and other mi...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 9, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
NYTimes: Naloxone Eases Pain of Heroin Epidemic, but Not Without Consequences
PORTLAND, Me. — A woman in her 30s was sitting in a car in a parking lot here last month, shooting up heroin, when she overdosed. Even after the men she was with injected her with naloxone, the drug that reverses opioid overdoses, she remained unconscious. They called 911. < br > < br > Firefighters arrived and administered oxygen to improve her breathing, but her skin had grown gray and her lips had turned blue. As she lay on the asphalt, the paramedics slipped a needle into her arm and injected another dose of naloxone. < br > < br > In a moment, her eyes popped open. Her pupils were pinpricks. She was woozy and disori...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 27, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Financial Stress Hurts, Literally - Scientific American
Few things feel worse than not knowing when your next paycheck is coming. Economic insecurity has been shown to have a whole host of negative effects, including low self-esteem and impaired cognitive functioning. It turns out financial stress can also physically hurt, according to a paper published in February in Psychological Science.
Eileen Chou, a public policy professor at the University of Virginia, and her collaborators began by analyzing a data set of 33,720 U.S. households and found that those with higher levels of unemployment were more likely to purchase over-the-counter painkillers. Then, using a series of exper...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 20, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana - The Washington Post
There's a body of research showing that painkiller abuse and overdose are lower in states with medical marijuana laws. These studies have generally assumed that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics. But that's always been just an assumption.Now a new study, released in the journal Health Affairs, validates these findings by providing clear evidence of a missing link in the causal chain running from medical marijuana to falling overdoses. Ashley and W. David Bradford, a daughter-father pair of researchers at ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 15, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Pfizer agrees to truth in opioid marketing - The Washington Post
Pfizer, the world's second- largest drug company, has agreed to a written code of conduct for the marketing of opioids that some officials hope will set a standard for manufacturers of narcotics and help curb the use of the addictive painkillers.
Though Pfizer does not sell many opioids compared with other industry leaders, its action sets it apart from companies that have been accused of fueling an epidemic of opioid misuse through aggressive marketing of their products.
Pfizer has agreed to disclose in its promotional material that narcotic painkillers carry serious risk of addiction — even when used proper...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 6, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
New Ways to Treat Pain Meet Resistance - The New York Times
A few months ago, Douglas Scott, a property manager in Jacksonville, Fla., was taking large doses of narcotic drugs, or opioids, to deal with the pain of back and spine injuries from two recent car accidents.
The pills helped ease his pain, but they also caused him to withdraw from his wife, his two children and social life.
"Finally, my wife said, 'You do something about this or we're going to have to make some changes around here,'" said Mr. Scott, 43.
Today, Mr. Scott is no longer taking narcotics and feels better. Shortly after his wife's ultimatum, he entered a local clinic where patients ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 23, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Survey shows lots of people save leftover painkillers - Futurity
More than half of patients who get a prescription for opioid painkillers have leftover pills and keep them to use later, a practice that could potentially exacerbate the United States' epidemic of painkiller addiction and overdoses.Researchers reporting in JAMA Internal Medicine also found that nearly half of those surveyed reported receiving no information on how to safely store their medications to keep them from children who could accidentally ingest them or from someone looking to get high.One in five respondents said they had shared their medication with another person, many saying they gave them to someone ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 16, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
An E.R. Kicks the Habit of Opioids for Pain - The New York Times
Brenda Pitts sat stiffly in an emergency room cubicle, her face contorted by pain. An old shoulder injury was radiating fresh agony down to her elbow and up through her neck. She couldn't turn her head. Her right arm had fallen slack.
Fast relief was a pill away — Percocet, an opioid painkiller — but Dr. Alexis LaPietra did not want to prescribe it. The drug, she explained to Mrs. Pitts, 75, might make her constipated and foggy, and could be addictive. Would Mrs. Pitts be willing to try something different?
Then the doctor massaged Mrs. Pitts's neck, seeking the locus of a muscle spasm, apologizing as the pat...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 12, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Why taking morphine, oxycodone can sometimes make pain worse | Science | AAAS
There's an unfortunate irony for people who rely on morphine, oxycodone, and other opioid painkillers: The drug that's supposed to offer you relief can actually make you more sensitive to pain over time. That effect, known as hyperalgesia, could render these medications gradually less effective for chronic pain, leading people to rely on higher and higher doses. A new study in rats—the first to look at the interaction between opioids and nerve injury for months after the pain-killing treatment was stopped—paints an especially grim picture. An opioid sets off a chain of immune signals in the spinal cord that amplifies p...
Source: Psychology of Pain - May 31, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
The Itch Lab — The California Sunday Magazine
The rash, which has spread from the crook of my elbow to the base of my wrist, is starting to sprout puffy, crimson welts. It's been three minutes since I rubbed a mound of coarse blond fibers onto my forearm, and what began as a mild prickling sensation has escalated into a throbbing itch. Diana Bautista doesn't seem concerned. "Will scratching make it worse?" I ask. She nods. "Yes, but it will feel really good while you're doing it."
This unsanctioned self-experiment is taking place in the kitchenette of Bautista's University of California, Berkeley, lab. The source of my discomfort is...
Source: Psychology of Pain - May 27, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
The Sting of the Tarantula Hawk: Instantaneous, Excruciating Pain - Undark
Stung by a tarantula hawk? The advice I give in speaking engagements is to lie down and scream. The pain is so debilitating and excruciating that the victim is at risk of further injury by tripping in a hole or over an object in the path and then falling onto a cactus or into a barbed-wire fence. Such is the sting pain that almost nobody can maintain normal coordination or cognitive control to prevent accidental injury. Screaming is satisfying and helps reduce attention to the pain of the sting. Few, if any, people would be stung willingly by a tarantula hawk. I know of no examples of such bravery in the name of knowledge,...
Source: Psychology of Pain - May 19, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Treating Pain Without Feeding Addiction at ‘Ground Zero’ for Opioids - The New York Times
BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — The doctors wanted to talk about illness, but the patients — often miners, waitresses, tree cutters and others whose jobs were punishingly physical — wanted to talk only about how much they hurt. They kept pleading for opioids like Vicodin and Percocet, the potent drugs that can help chronic pain, but have fueled an epidemic of addiction and deadly overdoses.
"We needed to talk about congestive heart failure or diabetes or out-of-control hypertension," said Dr. Sarah Chouinard, the chief medical officer at Community Care of West Virginia, which runs primary care clinics across a big rur...
Source: Psychology of Pain - May 12, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
