A Match Made in Hell: Chronic Pain and Suicidal Thoughts

Individuals who suffer from chronic pain often present with significant medical and psychiatric comorbidities that can exacerbate the pain experience and contribute to a further erosion of quality of life and disability. Suicide is a serious side effect of chronic pain.

Fighting the Pain Crisis Together: Best Practice Recommendations

Emphasizing the importance of individualized patient-centered care in the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic pain, the Department of Health & Human Services has released a Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report: Updates, Gaps, Inconsistencies, and Recommendations...

Best Practices for Both Acute and Chronic Pain Management

NEWSWIRE--This week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Pain Management Best Practices Interagency Task Force will meet to vote on final best practice recommendations focused on acute and chronic pain, including opioid use and prescribing, and will also hear public comment. This...

Understanding the Likelihood of Continued Opioid Use Postsurgery

Although opioids play a key role in reducing pain when recovering from surgery, some patients transition to chronic users and become dependent on them. In order to find out what situations result in patients continuing to refill their opioid prescriptions after a surgery, Johns Hopkins researchers...

Neck and Upper Extremity Pain Syndromes

There are many potential underlying causes for neck and upper extremity pain. All too often, only the most common conditions, such as a disk herniation centrally or carpal tunnel syndrome, are explored. The purpose of this course is to review other common problems such as radiculitis, and not so...

Chronic Pain—Does a Daily Cocktail Help Reduce Symptoms?

Although moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with improvement in some health outcomes including lower risk for heart disease, stroke, and dementia, the impact on chronic pain levels is less well understood. Researchers from the University of Michigan sought to investigate the...

Staying the Pendulum: Moderatism and Prescription Opioids for Pain

An editorial appearing earlier this week in the Journal of Pain Research and coauthored by senior PAINWeek faculty member Michael Schatman, PhD, CPE, DASPE, advocates for a fresh approach to threading the needle between efforts to address the crisis of opioid abuse and the legitimate needs of...

Less Sleep, More Pain—Not Sleeping Well at Night May Be the Cause

The association between chronic pain and sleep impairment has been well documented, including findings from a 2015 poll by the National Sleep Foundation that 2 of 3 patients with chronic pain also experience recurring disruptions in their sleep. New research conducted at UC Berkeley’s Center for...

Topical Creams for Localized Chronic Pain—Do They Really Work?

Prescription topical pain preparations can cost from $20 to thousands of dollars and are often perceived as a safer treatment approach that is free of the side effects or addictive potential of other pain medications. In 2015, Medicare Part D spent over $500 million in coverage for the prescriptions...

Chronic Pain: The Reason for Most Medical Marijuana Use

Researchers from the University of Michigan recently completed an examination of the available data from state medical marijuana registries to assess why patients are using cannabis for medical reasons, and whether there is evidence based support for these uses. The study classified patient reported...