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PainCare Blog Archive
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September, 2008 |
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By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
9/20/2008
Tulsa World
A study shows that doctors needn't
fear prescribing pain medicine.
Many physicians underprescribe pain
medications for patients who need them out of fear of prosecution,
but a national study shows that few of the nation's doctors ever get
in trouble for prescribing narcotics improperly.
The study, which appeared in the
Sept. 9 edition of the journal Pain Medicine, shows that only
one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation's nearly 700,000 practicing
physicians were prosecuted or sanctioned between 1998 and 2006 for
prescribing opioid-analgesics improperly.
Oklahoma Attorney General Drew
Edmondson is one of nine authors of the study and was the only state
attorney general involved.
"The overriding purpose of the
study was to see what a typical prosecution of this type looked
like, if there was any such thing," he said.
"The big surprise to all of us was
that the largest group prosecuted were family practice physicians,"
he said.
Few were pain medicine specialists.
The perception that physicians are
often prosecuted for prescribing opioid narcotics improperly has
left many people suffering with chronic pain, Edmondson said.
More...
PainCareMD
More patients are turning to
shoulder-replacement surgery to relieve pain and restore motion
By ANN CARRNS
The Wall Street Journal
Sept. 13, 2008
Carol DiFrulo had come to dread
driving to her job as a high-school art teacher on New York's Staten
Island. She loved her work, but arthritis in her shoulders had
become so painful that she would cry when maneuvering the steering
wheel into a turn. She struggled to lift a paintbrush or write on
chalkboards, and combing her long hair was an ordeal.
"I was in agony," she recalls. "I
could hardly move my shoulders at all."
Today, Ms. DiFrulo, age 59, is pain
free and commutes to work happily. In 2006, she had
shoulder-replacement surgery -- a procedure in which a surgeon
removes the shoulder joint and installs an artificial replacement.
Most people have heard of surgeries
to replace knee or hip joints. That's no surprise, given that they
are the two most common joint-replacement operations in the U.S.,
according to 2005 data from the National Center for Health
Statistics.
Shoulder-replacement surgery is the
third most frequent, though the annual volume (35,000) is a fraction
of those involving knees (534,000) and hips (469,000). (For hips and
shoulders, numbers include both total and partial joint
replacements.) The shoulder numbers lag behind the other two,
specialists say, partly because shoulders aren't weight-bearing
joints. That means fewer people develop severe arthritis in the
shoulder, and those who do can sometimes compensate by using the
other shoulder more, or make do with rest and medication, rather
than have potentially arduous surgery.
Yet the number of shoulder
replacements has been increasing, and the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons, a professional group, anticipates they will
continue to grow by about 10% annually.
More...
PainCareMD
Shoulders, neck and back most
affected, but group says smart loading could cut stress
Posted September 12, 2008
FRIDAY, Sept. 12 (HealthDay News)
-- About 85 percent of American university students report
backpack-related pain and discomfort, says a Boston University
study.
Discomfort was most common in the
shoulders, lower back, upper middle back and neck.
The findings may point to an
emerging trend between pain and discomfort and time spent carrying
backpacks, suggested study co-author Dr. Karen Jacobs, a former
president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)
and a board-certified professional ergonomist.
More...
PainCareMD
09.10.08
Forbes.com
THURSDAY, Sept. 11 (HealthDay News)
-- Researchers say they've developed an "abuse-resistant"
formulation of the widely prescribed opioid pain medication
OxyContin.
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration has granted Remoxy priority review, meaning that
action could come as soon as early December, said Dr. Nadav
Friedman, chief operating officer of Pain Therapeutics Inc., which
developed Remoxy.
If approval is granted, said
Friedman, who is also co-author of two studies being presented this
week at the American Academy of Pain Management's annual meeting,
the drug could get on the market "very quickly."
Pain Therapeutics Inc., based in
San Mateo, Calif., funded both studies.
More...
PainCareMD
The Associated Press
By LINDA A. JOHNSON – Sep 10, 2008
Two studies call into question
whether many people with arthritis are needlessly undergoing one of
the most common operations in America: arthroscopic knee surgery.
One finds that surgery is no better
than medication and physical therapy for relieving the pain and
stiffness of moderate or severe arthritis. The other reveals that
tears in knee cartilage — which often prompt such surgeries — are
very common without causing symptoms.
Experts said the new studies and
other evidence show arthroscopic knee surgery still has a place,
such as after a recent injury, but shouldn't be done routinely for
osteoarthritis.
More...
PainCareMD
By Alice Turner
September 7th 2008
eFlux Media
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration issued a statement which highlights that
manufacturers of Humira, Cimzia, Enbrel, and Remicade must
strengthen the existing warnings, in the Warnings and Precaution
sections of the drugs' prescribing information and Medication
Guides, to better highlight the risk of developing fungal
infections. The FDA found that several patients with invasive fungal
infections have died.
Humira, Cimzia, Enbrel, and
Remicade are tumor necrosis factor alpha blockers (TNF-alpha
blockers) which are immunosuppressors, reducing the activity of a
person's immune system, thus possibly exposing them to a higher risk
of various diseases. They are used to treat diseases such as
rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, psoriatic
arthritis, plaque psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, and Crohn's
disease.
More...
PainCareMD
Achilles' Heel: Need to check
whether high heels are right
7 Sep, 2008,
The Economic Times
A colleague recently narrated an
interesting tale about how her doctor had traced high heels as the
reason behind her back pain. Now, most of us know that stilettos and
style make most women go tip-toe and maintaining equilibrium with
elan is more of an art than science for them. But before you shop
for that show-stealer pair, do you spare a thought for the hazards
of high heels?
Let’s understand why your style
statement may come at a high price? In fact, doctors feel that the
current craze for superhigh heels with very narrow toes create
problems for the feet. Round-toes shoes with five or even seven-inch
heels, in vogue now, are hardly better. As for the popular thongs —
they expose feet and cause frequent accidents.
They suggest that the best shoes
for healthy feet mimic the foot’s natural shape, while offering
support to the arch and a flexible sole underneath the toes.
More...
PainCareMD
Don't do it for yourself -- but for
your knees
September 3, 2008
Los Angeles Times
If your knees are pain-free, enjoy
it while you can. Almost half of Americans will develop knee
osteoarthritis by the time they're 85, new research suggests.
If the nation keeps packing on the
pounds, that number could rise. Extra weight is hard on the knees,
which stands to reason considering where those pounds of pressure
become focused, substantially increasing the risk that the cartilage
protecting the bone will begin to erode.
More...
PainCareMD
Shingles is one of the most painful nerve conditions caused by the
chicken pox virus. The key to treatment (besides vaccination) is
early diagnosis and early intervention.
Larry Ho, MD
September 4, 2008
By MARY JACOBS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
...Anybody who has had chickenpox can get shingles, and sooner or
later a significant number of them will.
"Once you're infected with chickenpox, the virus is dormant in your
body for the rest of your life," says Dr. Stephen Tyring, clinical
professor in the department of dermatology at the University of
Texas Medical School in Houston. But physical or emotional stress,
or immune suppression caused by disease or cancer treatment, can
trigger an outbreak.
Twenty percent of people who have had chickenpox will go on to have
shingles...
... Shingles can't be cured, but early intervention with antiviral
medication can minimize the length and severity of the symptoms. The
key word is "early."
"We'd like to see patients within the first 48 hours after the onset
of symptoms," says Dr. James Luby, professor of internal
medicine-infectious diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "But
the sooner the better."
More...
PainCareMD
Tuesday, 26 August 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Tweed, Vera Vukovic, Laurel
...Fish Oil
In 2002, the American Heart
Association concluded that about 3 g offish oil daily was beneficial
for maintaining a healthy heart, and higher doses, with the
oversight of a physician, could be beneficial where disease exists.
The omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil cool inflammation, protect the
heart, and reduce physical and emotional pain, risk for disease, and
premature aging.
As an example, a study published in
Surgical Neurology found that fish oil reduced chronic back and neck
pain among 125 people, to the point where more than half of them
stopped taking pain medication. Numerous studies, such as a recent
one published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Psychiatry, show that fish oil can improve mood. In the recent
trial, fish oil was as effective as a popular prescription
medication for depression.
Studies in various scientific
journals, such as the British Journal of Dermatology, have found
that fish oil helps relieve inflammatory skin conditions and reduces
sunburn. It also reduces risks for diabetes, aggressive behavior,
and is a key nutrient for the healthful development of babies and
growdi of children.
Dosage: 3 g fish oil daily (providing
approximately 1 g of key fatty acids, EPA and DHA). High-EPA
formulations, available in health food stores, have been used in
treatment of inflammatory conditions and depression.
More...
PainCareMD
Mon Aug 25, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and
Co's Cymbalta depression treatment significantly reduced chronic low
back pain in a relatively small clinical trial, the company said on
Monday.
Data from the 236-patient trial,
which lasted 13 weeks and compared the effectiveness of Cymbalta
with placebos, were presented at the annual congress of the European
Federation of Neurological Societies in Madrid.
More...
PainCareMD
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