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PainCare Blog Archive
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October, 2008 |
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Leading Pain Doctor Says Talking,
Walking, Laughing and Sex Can Help
Oct. 23, 2008
NEW YORK, Oct 23, 2008 /PRNewswire
via COMTEX/ -- Is Wall Street to blame for your back pain?
If you've been suffering from back,
neck or shoulder pain lately, much of it could be a direct result of
the financial crisis gripping the world, says pain specialist Norman
Marcus, M.D., who offers suggestions to help you deal with that
pain. They include talking, walking, laughing and sex.
Dr. Marcus is Clinical Associate
Professor in Anesthesiology and Psychiatry and Director of Muscle
Pain Research at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine and a past president
of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.
"The financial meltdown is causing millions to worry about losing
their jobs, their homes and their retirement savings. And stress and
tension are major causes of most common back and neck pain," says
Dr. Marcus.
"When you're tense, anxious, fearful or angry, your back, shoulder
and neck muscles contract. And prolonged contraction of muscles as a
result of stress and tension can cause pain severe enough to impair
you.
But there are strategies you can
use to relieve that pain," says Dr. Marcus.
More...
PainCareMD
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008
Just What the Doctor Ordered: A
Massage
By Sanjay Gupta, M.D.
I'm not a big fan of massages. As a
neurosurgeon, I've never been completely convinced that the science
behind them is all that sound. Yet there's no denying that they're
popular — particularly among baby boomers and others who try to get
active and stay fit with bodies that seem to grow achier all the
time. But increasingly, research is showing that all those boomers
may be onto something — that there are solid reasons for just about
everyone to consider getting a good rubdown.
Investigators at the University of
Colorado Denver School of Medicine recently took a close look at the
effect of massage on a very specific group of people who might be
most in need of pampering: cancer patients. In a study of 380 adults
with advanced-stage cancer and at least moderate pain, the
researchers found that those who received massage therapy had
greater improvement in pain and mood than patients who were touched
in a manner similar to massage but without the precise motion and
pressure a trained therapist uses.
More...
PainCareMD
October 22, 2008
By STEPHANIE SAUL
The New York Times
For the first time in at least a
decade, the nation’s consumers are trying to get by on fewer
prescription drugs.
As people around the country
respond to financial and economic hard times by juggling the cost of
necessities like groceries and housing, drugs are sometimes having
to wait.
“People are having to choose
between gas, meals and medication,” said Dr. James King, the
chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a national
professional group. He also runs his own family practice in rural
Selmer, Tenn.
More...
PainCareMD
China Daily
2008-10-22
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is
chronic disorder of the digestive system which has been given more
coverage in recent years, with 10-20 percent of people in Western
countries fitting the diagnostic criteria at any given time.
However, with no clear-cut cause nor course of treatment, IBS
remains a largely misunderstood condition.
IBS is described as a "functional"
disorder because the way the gut works is affected but there are no
notable physical changes. The symptoms are unpleasant and variable
and may include bloating, diarrhea, constipation, cramping and
stomach pain. Nausea, headache, heartburn and loss of appetite may
also feature. It is crucial to get a firm IBS diagnosis from your
doctor, mainly to rule out more serious disorders.
So what triggers this disagreeable
condition? The causes of IBS are not explicitly known but in all
likelihood several factors including stress, diet, fluid intake,
sleep pattern, exercise and previous stomach infections may be
involved.
More...
PainCareMD
By Gregg Zoroya
USA TODAY
October 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — Narcotic pain-relief
prescriptions for injured U.S. troops have jumped from 30,000 a
month to 50,000 since the Iraq war began, raising concerns about the
drugs' potential abuse and addiction, says a leading Army pain
expert.
The sharp rise in outpatient
prescriptions paid for by the government suggests doctors rely too
heavily on narcotics, says Army Col. Chester "Trip" Buckenmaier III,
of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
By 2005, two years into the war,
narcotic painkillers were the most abused drug in the military,
according to a survey that year of 16,146 servicemembers.
MORE: Prescription drug abuse hits
Mo. Army unit hard
Among Army soldiers, 4% surveyed in
2005 admitted abusing prescription narcotics in the previous 30
days, with 10% doing so in the last 12 months. Researchers said the
results may have been skewed by respondents mistakenly referring to
legal use of pain medication. A 2008 survey has not been released.
"You don't have to throw narcotics
at people to start managing pain," says Buckenmaier, who pioneered
technology that eases the pain of wounded soldiers.
More...
PainCareMD
BY ELIZABETH BASSETT
October 20, 2008
Fort Worth Business Press
It’s difficult to treat something
that is hard to measure.
However, an estimated 76 million
Americans who suffer from pain, according to the National Centers
for Health Statistics, must deal with their sometimes debilitating
problems while trying to seek medical treatment that is based on
subjective reports.
The American Academy of Pain
Medicine estimates chronic pain costs the United States anywhere
between $60 billion and $100 billion every year in health care
expenses, lost income and lost productivity. Many Americans live
with pain every day, and they may live with the pain for decades.
As the baby boomers encounter the
aches and pains of growing older, physicians estimate there are
millions of Americans who are not adequately controlling their pain.
Much of that may have to do with common pain treatments, and
specialty physicians are looking for ways to educate more doctors
and patients about what can be done to cut down on pain and restore
functionality.
More...
PainCareMD
By DALE ROBERTSON
Houston Chronicle
Oct. 19, 2008
The empirical, which is to say observable, evidence suggests many
amateur golfers don't think they need to be physically fit to hit
the links every Saturday morning after a week of wheeling and
dealing from behind the desk.
Nothing could be further from the truth according to physical
therapist Russ Paine. As a five-handicapper, Paine speaks with
authority about both golf and fitness.
"Most guys — especially older golfers — tend to be stiff, or just
weak and flabby," Paine says. "When you bend to address the ball,
you have to be flexible. If your hamstrings are tight, you can't get
in the right position. If you're weak, you can't maintain core
stability. Your hips slide and that produces a swing that loads up
your spine in a very bad way.
More...
PainCareMD
American Society of
Anesthesiologists (ASA)
08-Oct-2008
Newswise — Currently affecting 50
million adults in the United States, the pain and disability of
arthritis frequently necessitates joint replacement surgery. As the
number of Americans affected by arthritis is expected to increase, a
new study presented today at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American
Society of Anesthesiologists finds relief for those who undergo the
painful orthopedic procedures.
Researchers found that the drug
pregabalin, when administered before and after total knee
replacement surgery significantly decreased the incidence of chronic
pain while increasing and expediting patient mobility after surgery.
“While TKR is an effective surgical
treatment one of the complications is chronic pain, a debilitating
condition that can lead to a substantial reduction in quality of
life with few effective treatment options,” said Asokumar
Buvanendran, M.D., associate professor of anesthesiology and
director of orthopedic anesthesia at Rush Medical College, Chicago,
Illinois. “Searching for ways to improve the patient surgical
experience, we evaluated pregabalin for effectiveness not as a
treatment for chronic pain, but as a preventative of chronic
neuropathic pain after surgery.”
For the trial 240 patients having
knee replacement were divided into two groups. Half of the patients
received 300 milligrams pregabalin of pregabalin two hours before
surgery and repeated doses of 150 milligrams twice a day for 14 days
following surgery. The remaining patients received a matching
placebo at the same time intervals. After surgery all patients
received pain medication through a catheter using a patient
controlled epidural device (PCEA).
The principal finding of the study
was the dramatic decrease in the incidence of chronic neuropathic
pain in patients who received pregabalin. Six months following
surgery, 0 percent of patients in the pregabalin group reported the
incidence of chronic pain compared to 5.3 percent of patients in the
placebo group.
In addition patients that received
pregabalin experienced a greater knee range of motion (ROM)
following surgery with the ability to perform simple tasks when
returning home such as climbing stairs with a ROM of 85 degrees
compared to a ROM of 79 degrees for the placebo group. Patients can
climb stairs at 83 degrees of knee flexion, descend stairs at 90
degrees and rise from a chair at 90 degrees.
“This is the first large
prospective clinical trial examining the incidence of chronic pain
after TKR and defining strategy to prevent the development of this
debilitating chronic pain syndrome,” said Buvanendran. “With the
promising treatment of pregabalin, patients may no longer delay
needed orthopedic surgery for fear of pain after surgery and delayed
rehabilitation.”
More...
PainCareMD
Men who light up show less
improvement after therapy, study says
October 18, 2008
SATURDAY, Oct. 18 (HealthDay News)
-- Women appear to respond better than men to chronic pain
treatment, and men who smoke appear to receive even less of benefit,
a new study says.
The Mayo Clinic study, to be
presented Saturday at the American Society of Anesthesiologists
annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., involved more than 1,200 men and
women admitted to a three-week outpatient pain treatment program. It
aimed to restore physical functionality, and reduce or eliminate use
of medications for chronic pain.
Previous studies had shown that
smokers generally do not benefit as much as nonsmokers from pain
management, mostly because their physical health is worse going into
the program.
More...
PainCareMD
Friday, October 17, 2008
St. Louis Business Journal
Pfizer Inc. said Friday that it
reached agreements that should resolve substantially all of the
personal injury, consumer fraud and state attorneys general claims
involving its pain medication Bextra. Claims regarding pain
medication Celebrex also will be resolved as part of the settlement,
the drug company said.
Pfizer withdrew Bextra, a
non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID), from the U.S. market in
2005. Celebrex is still on the market and has not been linked to any
significant safety risks, the company said.
More...
PainCareMD
Group finds 10 brands of bottled
water have contaminants similar to tap water
By Matthew Little
Epoch Times Staff Oct 16, 2008
Sam's Choice water exceeded
California's legal limit for trihalomethanes. (Courtesy of the
Environmental Working Group)
A Washington, DC-based
environmental group has found several brands of bottled water sold
across the U.S. are no better than tap water. Some are even worse.
The Environmental Working Group
(EWG) found a “surprising array of chemical contaminants” in the ten
brands of bottled water it analyzed including Walmart, Sam’s Choice
and Giant Supermarket’s Acadia brands.
Those two brands bore the “chemical
signature“ of municipally treated water: chlorine disinfection
byproducts and, in Giant water, fluoride.
“In other words, this bottled water
was chemically indistinguishable from tap water,“ said the report.
More...
PainCareMD
Submitted by: icas Ltd
(Publicasity)
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Response Source
BACK PAIN HITS BRITAIN’S KIDS
- Children as young as six are
falling victim to back pain according to new findings from The
British Chiropractic Association -
A survey released today by The
British Chiropractic Association (BCA) reveals that childhood
back pain has reached an all time high in the UK.
Almost a third (32%) of 6 to 7
year olds are complaining of back pain.
The survey, conducted to
coincide with World Spine Day (16th October), exposes that
suffering is beginning at a young age, in line with ‘slouch
potato’ lifestyles.
More...
PainCareMD
By THOMAS
M. BURTON
The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 14, 2008
People with painfully damaged knees and hips have increasingly
turned to "minimally invasive" joint-replacement surgery. But these
relatively new procedures, though they promise shorter recuperation
times, are raising concerns about potential complications.
Many surgeons in recent years have performed joint replacements with
ever smaller incisions. In minimally invasive surgery, the incision
is typically about three to four inches long, roughly half that of
traditional surgery. By cutting less of the surrounding tissue and
muscle, proponents of the technique say, patients are able to return
to their normal lives more quickly.
More...
Oct 13,
2008
wifr.com
A team of Illinois nursing homes come together to show how to
relieve pain for the elderly. A statewide campaign, called Road
Of Excellence aims to teach health professionals at more than
400 nursing home how to identify pain in seniors. With 50
percent of pain in the elderly going untreated, health leaders
say we should focus on nonverbal indicators to out what they may
be suffering from. The Illinois Council On Long Term Care offers
the following advice to all elderly persons who suffer from
pain, along with tips for their family and friends.
- Be sure to see a doctor if you are suffering from pain. Do not
just tough it out and suffer needlessly. Pain is not just a
normal part of aging. Your doctor can prescribe medications that
will help you overcome this pain and enjoy a higher quality of
life.
More...
PainCareMD
As a major conference on chronic
fatigue syndrome and its related conditions prepares to hit town, we
look at the effects this often devastating illness can have -- and
the hope for those who are dealing with it.
Michele Magnan
Calgary Herald
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Q&A with Dr. Alison Bested
Dr. Alison Bested is one of a
handful of Canadian doctors who specialize in myalgic
encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and related
conditions such as fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity.
More...
PainCareMD
Injected into mice, it proved more
effective but with fewer side effects, study says
U.S. News & World Report
October 8, 2008
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News)
-- A cell protein routinely used as a diagnostic for prostate cancer
appears to also work as a pain medication that is far more effective
than morphine but with far fewer side effects, a new report says.
Researchers from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and the University
of Helsinki found that Prostatic Acid Phosphatase, or PAP, was
identical to another protein found on pain-sensing neurons that
converts the chemical messengers that cause pain into ones that
suppress it.
"This protein has the potential to
be a groundbreaking treatment for pain and has previously not been
studied in pain-sensing neurons," lead study author Mark J. Zylka,
an assistant professor of cell and molecular physiology at UNC, said
in a university news release.
More...
PainCareMD
Suits say company misled on
Neurontin
By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff |
October 8, 2008
Top drug company marketing
executives suppressed a large European study suggesting their
blockbuster medication Neurontin was ineffective for chronic nerve
pain, and they privately strategized about how to silence a British
researcher who wanted to go public with the data, according to newly
filed documents and e-mails that are part of a Boston court case.
During the same period of several
years, Pfizer Inc. launched an advertising blitz promoting the
purportedly positive findings of a smaller Neurontin study it had
published in a major medical journal - including showing a video to
airline passengers before their in-flight movie.
The widespread promotion of
Neurontin turned what had been a relatively minor epilepsy drug into
one of the fastest-growing blockbuster drugs in the world, one that
generated more than $2 billion a year in US sales for Pfizer before
a generic competitor entered the market in 2004.
Taken together, the e-mails and
other internal Pfizer documents produced as part of a potential
class action lawsuit against the company represent one of the most
detailed looks yet at how a drugmaker controls what physicians and
consumers know about a drug.
More...
PainCareMD
VirtualMedicineCenter.com
7 Oct 2008
Chronic pain is notoriously
difficult to treat. Although there are no cures, a combination of
psychological and physical therapies appears to provide significant
benefits.
During their lifetime most of the
population will experience an episode of back pain that troubles
them sufficiently to affect the way they live and seek some form of
medical help. Anybody who has suffered from such a problem, or cared
for someone who has, will know just how acutely painful a 'bad back'
can be, with no doubting that in the grips of an episode the
sufferer can do little save reach for the bottle of tablets and cry
for help.
How extraordinary, then, that the
factors that predict the development of chronic pain following an
acute episode do not relate to any 'biological' factors such as
findings on physical examination, or change on x-ray, but to what
are termed 'psychosocial variables', such as mood, stress (as noted
by depression scores and anxiety levels) and the social situation in
which the pain occurs.
More...
PainCareMD
By: Lisa Ely
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
10/2/08
My roommate suffers from atrocious
allergies. Her immune system is generally shot, which I attribute to
the ludicrous amounts of work she does, and she is likely to
contract a semi-lethal strain of streptococcus and be down for the
count for the next eight weeks if anyone within a radius of seven
kilometers sniffles.
As such, my friend uses copious
amounts of pain relievers for her Hopkins-induced migraines,
gargantuan antihistamines for her allergies to her feline house
slugs and constant antibiotics for the frequent death syndromes she
contracts.
But alas! She loves to drink. She
is generally afflicted with more than one atrocity at a time, and we
know that mixing drugs with alcohol is a bad thing. What should she
avoid?
It seems that over the counter pain
relievers are the most common drugs present in every medicine
cabinet. Aspirin, ibuprofen (Motrin and Advil), acetaminophen
(Excedrin and Tylenol), and naproxen sodium (Aleve) are just a few
of the drugs used by athletes, bleeding females, cranky News-Letter
editors and klutzes worldwide.
More...
PainCareMD
Rising stress levels needn’t bring
pain, says Marianne Kavanagh
Telegraph.co.uk
03 Oct 2008
If the recession is making you work
longer hours hunched over your keyboard, stress levels rocketing,
take care. Your body may start complaining.
''We’ve noticed a 25 per cent
increase in neck and shoulder pain since the onset of the credit
crunch,’’ says registered osteopath Thomas Sheehan, senior tutor at
the British School of Osteopathy, who runs a busy practice in
south-east London. “We believe it’s a direct consequence of
increased computer use.”
More...
PainCareMD
10/3/2008 1:56:00 AM
Juliet Bumah
Punch On the Web
Due to the pressure associated with
trying to meet daily challenges, some people go through a whole day
without laughing. Contrary to commonly-held beliefs, most laughter
is not about humour - it is about relationships between people.
A growing body of research supports
the theory that laughter has a therapeutic value. A good gut-buster
not only helps the spirit, it gets the blood pumping, just like
jogging - only it‘s a workout that even hospital patients can enjoy.
Laughing on a regular basis can even boost immune system.
More...
PainCareMD
By Susan Okie,
who is a physician and a national correspondent for the New England
Journal of Medicine
Washington Post
Thursday, October 2, 2008
TRICK OR TREATMENT
The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine
By Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst
Norton. 342 pp. $25.95
...Some forms of alternative medicine have been studied extensively,
and the results (not surprisingly) are mixed. Homeopathy, the
authors conclude, is "a bogus industry that offers patients nothing
more than a fantasy"; it wastes money and can be dangerous if it
keeps patients from using effective treatments. Chiropractic therapy
shows some evidence of working for low back pain, but is expensive
and has significant risks, especially if the neck is manipulated.
Clinical trials of acupuncture have found evidence of its
effectiveness in only a few conditions: low back pain, headaches,
neck disorders, bedwetting, postoperative nausea and vomiting. A
table in the chapter on herbal medicine rates the evidence as "good"
for 10 of the 35 herbs listed; the evidence for the rest is rated as
"medium" or "poor,"
More...
PainCareMD
Fri Sep 26, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
...Men and women did not differ
significantly in terms of worst pain scores, least pain scores, or
pain interference. However, average pain in the last week and pain
right now were significantly higher in women.
In addition, the average total
daily dose of pain-killers was significantly greater for men (130
versus 66 milligrams morphine equivalent value).
Women were also significantly less
likely than men to receive prescriptions for high potency opioids
(33 percent versus 51 percent).
More...
PainCareMD
Facet Joint Effusion, Interspinal
Ligament Oedema Are Major Sources of Lower Back Pain
NEW YORK -- September 25, 2008 --
New magnetic resonance (MR) techniques show that facet joint
effusion and interspinal ligament oedema are major sources of lower
back pain, according to a study in the October issue of the American
Journal of Roentgenology.
Nefise Cagla Tarhan, MD, Baskent
University Hospital, Ankara, Turkey and Alanya Research Center in
Antalya, Turkey, and colleagues investigated whether degenerative
posterior paraspinal changes are a cause of lower back pain.
The study included 372 patients
(mean age, 51.2 y) with lower back pain and 249 healthy controls
(mean age, 49.3). All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) accompanied by short inversion time inversion recovery (STIR)
sequences. All findings were grouped according to age and sex.
"The most common imaging findings
in patients with nonradicular lower back pain were soft tissue
changes, mainly facet joint effusion, 85.5%, and interspinal
ligament swelling, 80.6%," said Dr. Tarhan, MD.
"Soft tissue changes are important
in the understanding of lower back pain and prevention and treatment
options should focus more on these changes. A lot of patients come
to me with complaints of bad, lower back pain; it is a very common
community problem," said Dr. Tarhan.
"With this new MR technique,
prevention and treatment options for lower back pain can focus more
on soft tissue degenerative changes that cause facet joint effusion
and interspinal ligament swelling."
SOURCE: American Roentgen Ray
Society
PainCareMD
This is a step in the right direction. Transparency is needed where
conflict may exist in how a doctor, who is a paid consultant to a
drug maker, can serve his patients and receive payments from the
drug maker simultaneously. This transparency should extend to any
relationship between practicing doctors and equipment makers,
hospitals, consulting companies and others.
Larry Ho, MD
September 25, 2008
By BENEDICT CAREY
New York Times
Amid a national debate over the
influence of industry money on medical research and practice, two
pharmaceutical giants say they will begin publicly reporting
payments they make to outside doctors.
John C. Lechleiter, chief executive
of Eli Lilly & Company, announced on Wednesday that starting next
year it intended to post in an online database all its payments to
doctors for speaking and consulting services. The postings will
“likely include” the names of the doctors, or will provide some
other identifying information about them, along with the reason for
the payments, the company said.
In the wake of Lilly’s
announcement, Merck & Company said later Wednesday that it would
disclose speaking fees it pays to doctors, also beginning in 2009.
More...
PainCareMD
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