Study Finds ‘Doctor Shopping’ Uncommon - National Pain Report - National Pain Report
Less than one percent of patients – about 135,000 people — who purchase prescription painkillers in the U.S. were classified as "doctor shoppers" in the first national study of opioid prescriptions and sales records.But while they make up only a small proportion of the 48 million patients who are prescribed painkillers, researchers say patients who visit multiple doctors and pharmacies to obtain opioids are having an outsized impact on the system. Federal and state officials have cracked down on the illicit use of painkillers by making it harder for patients to obtain opioids – even ones with legitimate prescriptions...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 14, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Backlash Against Walgreen’s New Painkiller Crackdown | CommonHealth
You may be in for a shock if you try to get a prescription for any controlled substance – from Ambien to opioid pain relievers – filled at Walgreens anywhere around the country.Walgreens recently announced what it calls a new "Good Faith Dispensing" policy under which the pharmacy giant – the largest in the nation – is suddenly requiring its pharmacists to take "additional steps" to verify prescriptions for controlled substances.In plain English, this means that Walgreens pharmacists are going to call your doctor, or at least your doctor's office, to see if your doctor did the right thing in giving you a prescripti...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 14, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
SciBite: Latest pharma & biotech news and competitor intelligence for Pain
http://scibite.com/site/topic/MESHDISEASE:SCB2X23714 (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 12, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Risk of Adult Anxiety Seen in Children’s Stomachaches - NYTimes.com
Children with chronic stomach pains are at high risk for anxiety disorders in adolescence and young adulthood, a new study has found, suggesting that parents may wish to have their children evaluated at some point for anxiety.Researchers at Vanderbilt University tracked 332 children with recurring stomachaches that could not be traced to a physical cause — so-called functional abdominal pain — comparing them as they reached young adulthood with 147 children who had never had such stomachaches.About half the teenagers and young adults who had had functional abdominal pain as children developed an anxiety disorder a...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 12, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Chronic Pain Conditions News & Articles | dailyRx
http://www.dailyrx.com/conditions/chronic-pain-conditions (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 8, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
An End to Sunburn Pain: Scientists Say It’s Possible | TIME.com
For sun worshipers, the sting of the sunburn is sometimes the price of bronzed skin, but it doesn't have to be that way, according to researchers.
Wolfgang Liedtke, a Duke University neurologist, and scientists from Rockefeller University and the University of California San Francisco discovered that by blocking a molecule called TRPV4, they can eliminate the chain of events that result in the pain caused by sunburn.
Most sunburns are triggered by ultraviolet B rays (UVB) that damage the skin's outermost layer, which can result in redness and burning. In moderate amounts, exposure to UVB rays can be beneficial, l...
Source: Psychology of Pain - August 7, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Doctors Increasingly Ignore Evidence In Treating Back Pain : Shots - Health News : NPR
This study didn't examine why doctors aren't following clinical guidelines for treating back pain, but other studies have found that when doctors own imaging equipment, they are more likely to use it.
Doctors should be cut a little slack, a journal commentary accompanying this study says, because guidelines have been conflicted on back pain treatment until recently, and it takes 17 years, on average, for new treatment standards to be widely adopted. But creating checklist-type guidelines for doctors would help speed that process, the commentary says. So would requiring patients to pay more of the cost of expensive...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 30, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Living With Pain : Neurology Now
A few months after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) at age 17, Jon Hood of Phoenix, AZ, wandered through his home gathering medications—in an attempt to kill himself to escape the physical pain he was experiencing as a result of the disease. He swallowed a pile of pills with a glass of water. Hours later, he woke up disoriented, confused, and suffering from severe stomach cramps. "My mom heard me vomiting and took me to the hospital," says Hood.
He had begun feeling pain in his limbs at age 11. At 13, leg cramps kept him up all night. By 17, Hood had lost his vision, developed a limp, and could no ...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 19, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Pain-Specific Brain Activity Is Subtle, and Scattered | Pain Research Forum
Researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to define neural signatures of pain in the brain face a daunting task, because pain elicits complex and distributed activity in many of the same brain regions as other intense sensations. Now, Giandomenico Iannetti, University College London, UK, and colleagues have identified fine-grained differences in brain activity, scattered across multiple primary sensory regions, that distinguish pain compared to the response to other strong sensory stimuli such as loud noise and bright light. "There is something specific" in brain activity during pain com...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 11, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Painful Problem: Why Kids Face Chronic Pain | LiveScience
This study shines a light on how poorly understood and mismanaged recurrent and chronic pain syndromes are."
However, Walco also said he believes the number of pain patients reported in the new study is "potentially artificially inflated" due to the diagnostic codes used to identify pain patients. Those codes, Walco said, "leaned in the direction of psychological issues."
The multiple diagnostic procedures and readmissions cited in the study underscore the need to do better when it comes to dealing with pain in youngsters, Walco said. Instead of treating chronic pain as an acute problem, physic...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 3, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Deaths in Painkiller Overdoses Rise Sharply Among Women - NYTimes.com
PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Prescription pain pill addiction was originally seen as a man's problem, a national epidemic that began among workers doing backbreaking labor in the coal mines and factories of Appalachia. But a new analysis of federal data has found that deaths in recent years have been rising far faster among women, quintupling since 1999.More women now die of overdoses from pain pills like OxyContin than from cervical cancer or homicide. And though more men are dying, women are catching up, according to the analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the problem is hitting white women harde...
Source: Psychology of Pain - July 3, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
The Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRCC)
is a federal advisory committee created by the Department of Health and Human Services to enhance pain research efforts and promote collaboration across the government, with the ultimate goals of advancing fundamental understanding of pain and improving pain-related treatment strategies. The Committee roster will include seven Federal members and twelve non-Federal members, six drawn from the scientific and medical communities and six members of the public and stakeholder groups. The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary will review the necessity of the Committee at least once every 2 years.As specified in Sec...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 25, 2013 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 - June 25, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Profiting From Pain - NYTimes.com
NEWS ANALYSISProfiting From PainBy BARRY MEIERThe use of narcotic painkillers, or opioids, has boomed over the past decade as drug makers and doctors have promoted them for a new use: treating long-term pain from back injuries, headaches, arthritisand conditions like fibromyalgia. Insurers have also grown to see pills as a cheaper way to treat chronic pain than other methods.MultimediaSome patients are greatly helped by opioids, a large family of medications. Among the more widely used opioids are oxycodone, which is found in Percocet and OxyContin, and hydrocodone, which is used in Vicodin. Other poten...
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 23, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Evaluation of Chronic Pain-Related Information Available to Consumers on the Internet. [Pain Med. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI
CONCLUSIONS.: Overall, these findings speak to the risks associated with clients making CP-related treatment choices based on information obtained online without first evaluating the Website.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23565667 (Source: Psychology of Pain)
Source: Psychology of Pain - June 21, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
