Spinal Cord Stimulation: An Effective Treatment for MS

The journal of Minimally Invasive Surgery published an article in which the researchers systematically reviewed the literature to evaluate the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. 373 MS patients were found after a review of 452 articles and 7 studies...

Addressing the Stigma of Pain Terminology

“Leaders in pain medicine recognize that terminology needs to keep up with our understanding of disorders, their pathophysiologies, and their treatment.” So say the authors of an article published in the Journal of Pain Research, one of whom is long time PAINWeek faculty, Michael Schatman, PhD, CPE...

Chronic Pain—Including Migraine—on the Rise

Findings from the 2002 to 2018 National Health Interview Survey for adults aged 25 to 84 are discouraging. Pain prevalence—for headache/migraine, joint, low back, neck, facial/jaw pain—has gone up, with people reporting a 10% increase of pain in at least 1 area. That equals an additional 10.5...

The Importance of “Clearly Defined Symptoms”

The Clinical Journal of Pain published an article examining the power of clearly defined symptoms in pain conditions and affects on patient stigmatization. The study looked at two pain conditions in particular: rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia sufferers, through daily diaries...

A Pain Patient’s Story

Chronic pain. Debilitating migraines. PTSD. This is one patient’s life. The Washington Post reports that, as bad as life with pain can be, it may become much worse during a pandemic. For this particular patient, due to COVID-19 a scheduled surgery was canceled, as were appointments with providers...

Pain in the Elderly

The Journal of Pain Research published an article entitled, Bibliometric Analysis of Research Articles on Pain in the Elderly Published from 2000 to 2019. In it, over 2100 articles were included, the largest number of them from the United States. "This work provides researchers with an in-depth...

Women and Chronic Pain

Although women have some conditions at much higher rates than men, and experience more adverse effects than men, and may need smaller dosages than men, they are frequently lumped in the same category as men. An article discussed on the site The Hill points out that “Despite the inclusion of women...

Factors Impacting the Treatment of RA

Optimal treatment of rheumatoid arthritis involves more than evaluation of inflammation and disease progression. RA is one of the 50 most common diseases, affecting 1.3 million people in the US and 15 million worldwide. Evaluation and detection of RA should involve other factors that may influence...

“Uncertain Evidence” of Antidepressant Treatment for Pain

Do antidepressants offer pain relief for osteoarthritis and back pain? Researchers published findings in the British Medical Journal, describing their systematic review and meta-analysis of 33 trials with 5318 participants, given either serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) or...

Tracking Pain and Stress Via a Cell Phone

A research article published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior details how smartphones are being used to survey real-time data for health. Researchers sought to determine “whether disadvantage and disorder in the immediate context—within or outside of the residential neighborhood—is...