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An analysis conducted by researchers at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health concludes that rising death rates from drug overdoses in the US long precede the now notorious “opioid crisis,” and that a near perfect exponential growth curve in these rates can be tracked back to the...
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A small study conducted by researchers from the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV (CDUHR) at New York University concludes that managers and staff of publicly patronized business establishments can be effective first responders to incidents of opioid overdose, if they are properly trained. A prior...
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When we talk about complex pain and patients with advanced illness, there are some basics that people need to know, which is how to treat the patients with opioids and other coanalgesic medications, but the key point is that it’s a team affair, and I would ask primary care physicians not to do it...
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Researchers from Northwestern University report that they have identified psychological and physiological characteristics that are associated with greater responsiveness to placebo effect in the modulation of pain. Study author A. Vania Apkarian, PhD, professor of physiology at Northwestern’s...
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A Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers updated data on the estimated prevalence of chronic pain in America. The report summarizes conclusions from a 2016 survey conducted in fulfillment of a National Pain...
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We know that chronic pain does have a biological interface. There are structural and functional changes in the brain, such as gray matter loss and a functional reorganization. We also know that chronic pain is associated with systemic effects, such as increased inflammation throughout the body such...
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When we look at things like frequency, intensity, duration, and extent of pain, we’re better able to evaluate the effect on the system and it’s not only affecting the brain, it’s affecting all the stress response systems. There is work that’s showing that we can actually capture this and show that...
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Humans have been searching for the Fountain of Youth for millennia. Some people feel that regenerative medicine is that magical fountain while others believe it is a fad. As with many emerging topics, there is curiosity and confusion. While the regenerative medicine field is relatively new to most...
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In 2013, a study led by researchers from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine reported an association between variants in the gene FKBP5 and chronic pain following trauma such as motor vehicle accident or sexual assault. Specifically, they reported, people who possess a variant or...
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I think we’ve been so focused on this opioid crisis that we have forgotten that these are very brittle people who have significant psychiatric co-morbidities, including depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, substance use disorders. I think that suicide is really a silent epidemic that has not been...