CDC warns doctors about the dangers of prescribing opioid painkillers - The Washington Post
With no end to the nation's opioid crisis in sight, the federal government on Tuesday issued final recommendations that urge doctors to use more caution and consider alternatives before they prescribe highly addictive narcotic painkillers.This first national guidance on the subject is nonbinding, and doctors cannot be punished for failing to comply. But the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued the guidelines, said the effort was critical to bringing about "a culture shift for patients and doctors.""We are waking up as a society to the fact that these are dangerous drugs,"...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 16, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
I ’m a doctor. I worry every time I prescribe painkillers to a patient. - Vox
& quot;Please, I need my Oxycodone! & quot; my patient, M, pleaded with me. < br > < br > My eyes met his. I observed every fleeting facial expression, hoping to gauge his intentions. The discussion about whether to continue to prescribe this medication was one I & #39;d had too many times with too many patients over the past few months. < br > < br > & quot;My arthritis is always worst in the winter, & quot; he said, rubbing his lower back. < br > < br > It was a snowy afternoon in clinic, and M and I were in the midst of a debate. Oxycodone is an opioid medication, and, like other painkillers such as Oxycontin, Percocet,...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 16, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
I’m a doctor. I worry every time I prescribe painkillers to a patient. - Vox
"Please, I need my Oxycodone!" my patient, M, pleaded with me.
My eyes met his. I observed every fleeting facial expression, hoping to gauge his intentions. The discussion about whether to continue to prescribe this medication was one I'd had too many times with too many patients over the past few months.
"My arthritis is always worst in the winter," he said, rubbing his lower back.
It was a snowy afternoon in clinic, and M and I were in the midst of a debate. Oxycodone is an opioid medication, and, like other painkillers such as Oxycontin, Percocet, and Vicodin, it carries a significant risk of ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 16, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
He couldn’t eat, drink or work. And doctors couldn’t explain his searing pain. - The Washington Post
Kim Pace was afraid he was dying. In six months he had lost more than 30 pounds because a terrible stabbing sensation on the left side of his face made eating or drinking too painful. Brushing his teeth was out of the question and even the slightest touch triggered waves of agony and a shocklike pain he imagined was comparable to electrocution. Painkillers, even morphine, brought little relief.
Unable to work and on medical leave from his job as a financial consultant for a bank, Pace, then 59, had spent the first half of 2012 bouncing among specialists in his home state of Pennsylvania, searching for help from doctors w...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 16, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
'Dry eye' linked to chronic pain syndromes - Medical Xpress
Physician-researchers with Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, part of UHealth—the University of Miami Health System, have found a link between "dry eye" and chronic pain syndromes—a finding that suggests that a new paradigm is needed for diagnosis and treatment to improve patient outcomes.
"Our study indicates that some patients with dry eye have corneal somatosensory pathway dysfunction and would be better described as having neuropathic ocular pain," said Anat Galor, M.D., M.S.P.H., a cornea and uveitis specialist and associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the U...
Source: Psychology of Pain - February 27, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
The Problem With Treating Pain in America | TIME
Chronic pain affects an estimated 100 million Americans, and between 5 to 8 million use opioids for long-term pain management. Data shows the number of prescriptions written for opioids as well opioid overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent years, highlighting a growing addiction problem in the U.S. In response, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a report on Monday citing major gaps in the way American clinicians are treating pain.
In September, the NIH held a workshop to review chronic pain treatment with a panel of seven experts and more than 20 speakers. The NIH also reviewed relevant research on how ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 17, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Panel cites need for individualized, patient-centered approach to treat and monitor chronic pain - NIH
An independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health concluded that individualized, patient-centered care is needed to treat and monitor the estimated 100 million Americans living with chronic pain. To achieve this aim, the panel recommends more research and development around the evidence-based, multidisciplinary approaches needed to balance patient perspectives, desired outcomes, and safety."Persons living with chronic pain have often been grouped into a single category, and treatment approaches have been generalized with little evidence to support this practice," said Dr. David B. Reuben, panel chair and p...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 17, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
A Meditation on Pain | Longreads Blog
It's happening, says the woman I love to someone in the other room. The someone is most likely her sister, and I hear the shuffle of clogs on the ruined carpet, the swish and swirl of her turquoise dress. I feel the shadow of her body in the doorway. I hear her breathing, tiny bursts of air through the nose and mouth. I feel and hear everything, but I am not a body. And because I am no longer a body, I do not register sound or voice. I do not register anything. Even my presence on the scratchy carpet. I do not know that I have been lying in the lap of the woman I love as she soothes my sweat-drenched hair, as she whispers ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 17, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Chronic Pain Associated with Activation of Brain's Glial Cells - Scientific American
Patients with chronic pain show signs of glial activation in brain centers that modulate pain, according to results from a PET-MRI study.
"Glia appears to be involved in the pathophysiology of chronic pain, and therefore we should consider developing therapeutic approaches targeting glia," Dr. Marco L. Loggia from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health by email.
"Glial activation is accompanied by many cellular responses, which include the production and release of substances (such as so-called 'pro-inflammatory cytokines') that can s...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 16, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Brain signature of emotion-linked pain is uncovered - health - 14 January 2015 - New Scientist
You're not imagining the pain. But your brain might be behind it, nonetheless. For the first time, it is possible to distinguish between brain activity associated with pain from a physical cause, such as an injury, and that associated with pain linked to your state of mind.
A fifth of the world's population is thought to experience some kind of chronic pain – that which has lasted longer than three months. If the pain has no clear cause, people can find themselves fobbed off by doctors who they feel don't believe them, or given ineffective or addictive painkillers.
But a study led by Tor Wager at the Univer...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 16, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Joint Pain, From the Gut - The Atlantic
Doctors aren't entirely sure what triggers rheumatoid arthritis, a disease in which the body turns on itself to attack the joints, but an emerging body of research is focusing on a potential culprit: the bacteria that live in our intestines.
Several recent studies have found intriguing links between gut microbes, rheumatoid arthritis, and other diseases in which the body's immune system goes awry and attacks its own tissue.
A study published in 2013 by Jose Scher, a rheumatologist at New York University, found that people with rheumatoid arthritis were much more likely to have a bug called Prevotella copri in t...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 15, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment - Pain Medicine News
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic, predominantly neuropathic and partly musculoskeletal pain disorder often associated with autonomic disturbances. It is divided into 2 types, reflecting the absence or presence of a nerve injury.Patients with either type may exhibit symptoms such as burning pain, hyperalgesia, and/or allodynia with an element of musculoskeletal pain. CRPS can be distinguished from other types of neuropathic pain by the presence of regional spread as opposed to a pattern more consistent with neuralgia or peripheral neuropathy. Autonomic dysfunction (such as altered sweating, changes in skin...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 3, 2015 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Pain Really Does Make Us Gain - The New Yorker
Last year, Dimitris Xygalatas, the head of the experimental anthropology lab at the University of Connecticut, decided to conduct a curious experiment in Mauritius, during the annual Thaipusam festival, a celebration of the Hindu god Murugan. For the ten days prior to the festival, devotees abstain from meat and sex. As the festival begins, they can choose to show their devotion in the form of several communal rituals. One is fairly mild. It involves communal prayer and singing beside the temple devoted to Murugan, on the top of a mountain. The other, however—the Kavadi—is one of the more painful modern religious ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - December 27, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Treating Neuropathic Pain With Cannabis: Pro and Con | Pain Research Forum
http://www.painresearchforum.org/news/48905-treating-neuropathic-pain-cannabis-pro-and-con (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - December 23, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
U.S. Doctors Cutting Back on Painkiller Prescriptions: Study - Healthday.com
Nine out of 10 primary care doctors in the United States are concerned about prescription drug abuse in their communities, a new study finds. And, nearly half of the physicians surveyed said they were less likely to prescribe powerful painkillers than they were just a year ago.More ...http://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/addiction-news-6/many-u-s-doctors-cutting-back-on-powerful-painkiller-prescriptions-study-694385.html (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - December 11, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
