Patients Prescribed Narcotic Painkillers Use More of Them for Longer, Study Finds - NYTimes.com
While a major public health campaign has had some success in reducing the number of people who take potentially addictive narcotic painkillers, those patients who are prescribed the drugs are getting more of them for a longer time, according to a new study.Nearly half the people who took the painkillers for over 30 days in the study's first year were still using them three years later, a sign of potential abuse.More ...http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/business/patients-prescribed-narcotic-painkillers-use-more-of-them-for-longer-study-finds.html? (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - December 9, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
A Pain Research Agenda for the 21st Century - The Journal of Pain
This article presents the American Pain Society's view of some of the most important research questions that need to be addressed to advance pain science and to improve care of patients with chronic pain.More... http://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(14)00913-4/fulltext (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - November 29, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Pain and itch neurons grown in a dish : Nature News
Nerve cells that transmit pain, itch and other sensations to the brain have been made in the lab for the first time. Researchers say that the cells will be useful for developing new painkillers and anti-itch remedies, as well as understanding why some people experience unexplained extreme pain and itching."The short take-home message would be 'pain and itch in a dish', and we think that's very important," says Kristin Baldwin, a stem-cell scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, whose team converted mouse and human cells called fibroblasts into neurons that detect sensations such as pain, itch o...
Source: Psychology of Pain - November 29, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
'Off switch' for pain discovered: Activating the adenosine A3 receptor subtype is key to powerful pain relief -- ScienceDaily
In research published in the medical journal Brain, Saint Louis University researcher Daniela Salvemini, Ph.D. and colleagues within SLU, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other academic institutions have discovered a way to block a pain pathway in animal models of chronic neuropathic pain including pain caused by chemotherapeutic agents and bone cancer pain suggesting a promising new approach to pain relief.The scientific efforts led by Salvemini, who is professor of pharmacological and physiological sciences at SLU, demonstrated that turning on a receptor in the brain and spinal cord counteracts chronic nerve p...
Source: Psychology of Pain - November 27, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
When The Doctor Says This Won’t Hurt A Bit — And Incredibly, It’s True | CommonHealth
In May, my six-year-old daughter, Julia, smashed into our front door handle and got a deep, bloody gash in her forehead.We rushed her, head wrapped like a tiny mummy, to the medical center at MIT, where we generally go for pediatric care. Julia wept while the nurse cleaned and examined her lacerated skin. After a short exam, she sent us to the emergency department at Children's Hospital Boston for stitches. "How bad is that, generally?" I asked, having never experienced suturing either for myself or my cautious, risk-averse, older daughter."It can be traumatic," the nurse said.Julia cried, "I don't want stitches."It's a la...
Source: Psychology of Pain - November 25, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
2014-2015 Global Year Against Neuropathic Pain - IASP
Neuropathic pain is pain that arises as a direct consequence of a lesion or diseases affecting the somatosensory system. Despite the availability of many effective drugs and guidelines for the treatment of neuropathic pain, evidence from the United States and Europe suggests that they are not widely used, and many cases remain under- or untreated. Our goal through the global year campaign is to raise awareness of issues surrounding neuropathic pain.Monday's launch includes a press release, a series of fact sheets examining the many aspects of neuropathic pain, and other resources for you to learn m...
Source: Psychology of Pain - November 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
The New Heroin Epidemic - The Atlantic
In a beige conference room in Morgantown, West Virginia, Katie Chiasson-Downs, a slight, blond woman with a dimpled smile, read out the good news first. "Sarah is getting married next month, so I expect her to be a little stressed," she said to the room. "Rebecca is moving along with her pregnancy. This is Betty's last group with us.""Felicia is having difficulties with doctors following up with her care for what she thinks is MRSA," Chiasson-Downs continued. "Charlie wasn't here last time, he cancelled. Hank ...""Hank needs a sponsor, bad," said Carl Sullivan, a middle-aged man with auburn hair and a deep drawl. "It kind ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - October 30, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Opioids prescribed by doctors led to 92,000 overdoses in ERs in one year - LA Times
Prescription drug overdoses, a dangerous side effect of the nation's embrace of narcotic painkillers, are a "substantial" burden on hospitals and the economy, according to a new study of emergency room visits.Overdoses involving prescription painkillers have become a leading cause of injury deaths in the U.S. and a closely watched barometer of an evolving healthcare crisis. Little was known, however, about the nature of overdoses treated in the nation's emergency rooms.A new analysis of 2010 data from hospitals nationwide found that prescription painkillers, known as opioids, were involved in 68% of opioid-related overdose...
Source: Psychology of Pain - October 30, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Pain Medicine News - Massive Research Project Targets Chronic Pain in the Military
Spanning five years, costing almost $22 million and spread across 13 separate research trials nationwide, several federal agencies are tackling head-on the mounting problem of how to treat chronic pain in the U.S. military without exacerbating the country's opioid abuse problem.
The new research program, spearheaded by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Services Research and Development Division, will look at non-drug approaches for treating chroni...
Source: Psychology of Pain - October 10, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
After New Federal Rules, Popular Painkillers Will Be Harder to Get | Valley News
It's going to be more difficult to refill prescriptions for the most popular painkillers starting today, when new federal rules move products with hydrocodone into a stricter drug class reserved for the most dangerous and addictive substances.In approving the change, the Drug Enforcement Administration cited the 7 million Americans who abuse prescription drugs and the 100,000 overdose deaths from painkillers in the last decade. Hydrocodone combinations, including Vicodin, Lortab and Norco, now account for more prescriptions than any other drug, with more than 130 million filled each year.Proponents of the new rules believe...
Source: Psychology of Pain - October 6, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Pathways to Prevention Workshop on The Role of Opioids in the Treatment of Chronic Pain - NIH
Chronic pain is a major public health problem, which is estimated to affect more than 100 million people in the United States and about 20–30% of the population worldwide. The prevalence of persistent pain is expected to rise in the near future as the incidence of associated diseases (including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disorders, arthritis, and cancer) increases in the aging U.S. population. Opioids are powerful analgesics that are commonly used and found to be effective for many types of pain. However, opioids can produce significant side effects, including constipation, nausea, mental clouding, and resp...
Source: Psychology of Pain - October 3, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Dying Without Morphine - NYTimes.com
Imagine watching a loved one moaning in pain, curled into a fetal ball, pleading for relief. Then imagine that his or her pain could be relieved by an inexpensive drug, but the drug was unavailable.
Each day, about six million terminal cancer patients around the world suffer that fate because they do not have access to morphine, the gold standard of cancer pain control. The World Health Organization has stated that access to pain treatment, including morphine, is an essential human right.
Most suffering because of a lack of morphine is felt in the poorer regions of the globe. About 90 percent of the world's morphine ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - October 1, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Health Researchers Will Get $10.1 Million to Counter Gender Bias in Studies - NYTimes.com
In an effort to begin addressing persistent gender bias in laboratory research, the National Institutes of Health announced Tuesday that it will distribute $10.1 million in grants to more than 80 scientists studying a diverse array of subjects, including drug addiction, fetal development, migraines and stroke.The researchers will use the additional funds to include more human participants — generally women — in clinical trials and to ensure that their laboratory animals, even cell lines, are representative of both genders. The money also will be used to analyze gender differences in the resulting data, officials said.M...
Source: Psychology of Pain - September 23, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
NIH Pain Consortium
The NIH Pain Consortium was established to enhance pain research and promote collaboration among researchers across the many NIH Institutes and Centers that have programs and activities addressing pain. To this end, the following goals have been identified for the Pain Consortium:To develop a comprehensive and forward-thinking pain research agenda for the NIH - one that builds on what we have learned from our past efforts.To identify key opportunities in pain research, particularly those that provide for multidisciplinary and trans-NIH participation.To increase visibility for pain research - both within the NIH intramural ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - September 22, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Why Do Amputees Feel the Ache of Nothingness? - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus
or amputees, it's adding insult to injury. They've already lost pieces of themselves that they thought they could always count on, limbs that they first discovered while waving the chubby things in their cribs. Yet after that life-changing loss comes a new kind of suffering: They begin to feel pain in the voids, in the places where their limbs used to be.The phenomenon of phantom limb pain is both cruel and common; some studies have estimated that about 75 percent of amputees feel pain in their nonexistent limbs. It's also so mysterious that psychologists, doctors, and neuroscientists have argued for centuries about the pa...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 23, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
