A comprehensive guide on chronic pain, its causes, symptoms, and effective management strategies to improve your quality of life.
People who live with chronic pain need options beyond prescription opioids, and it’s up to the British Columbia government to provide more services such as physiotherapy, says the head of a group that supports patients and their families. “There has really been a lack of any appropriate response to chronic pain in our province and in our country,” said Maria Hudspith, executive director of Pain BC, the only non-profit society in Canada to bring together…
The Food and Drug Administration has just issued what’s called a “Medwatch Alert” warning that Epidural steroid injections or “ESIs” for back and neck pain can be extremely dangerous. The alert says: “Injection of corticosteroids into the epidural space of the spine may result in rare but serious adverse events, including loss of vision, stroke, paralysis, and death.” Epidural steroid injections – and catastrophic injuries from them – were the subject of my debut investigation for The Dr.…
If you aren’t on this medication, chances are you know someone who is. It’s used to treat everything from pain to mood disorders and can be just what the doctor ordered for many. But now, there is mounting research uncovering misuse of and even a black market for this popular prescription. We’re talking about gabapentin. It’s approved for some types of seizures and nerve pain. Doctors also use it off-label to treat everything from insomnia…
We have received so many complaints about duloxetine side effects that we have lost count. Far more disturbing is the number of people who tell us how hard it is to discontinue this drug. Decades ago doctors might have told patients taking a drug like Cymbalta that if they experienced anxiety, irritability, or strange sensations after stopping the drug, it was probably their underlying psychological problem returning. Now we know it is withdrawal from the medicine.…
You’re Getting Older As you age, your cartilage — the spongy material that protects the ends of your bones — begins to dry out and stiffen. Your body also makes less synovial fluid, the stuff that acts like oil to keep your joints moving smoothly. The result: Your joints may not move as freely as they used to. It sounds a little crazy, but the best thing you can do is keep on trucking. Synovial…
A research project focused on developing an objective measure of pain-related interference with cognitive performance in people with fibromyalgia is one of three awarded research grants recently by Purdue Pharma. An independent steering committee oversaw the competition and selection of the three recipients of Purdue’s research grants to study chronic pain and the assessment of pain. Robert R. Edwards, Ph.D., of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, will lead the project…
Shoulder pain is really just pain in the joints and muscles in the shoulder area that may or may not limit what your arm can do. Much of this pain originates in the tissues and bones in the shoulder, and you might also only feel the pain in the middle of physical activity or when you move your arms. Other times you might feel pain in your shoulder nonstop. There are multiple questions you probably…
The media can’t look to get its stories about Prince right. As the news feed overflows with stories with the word Prince and drug addiction in them, not many of them feature the word chronic pain. Multiple reports show that Prince had suffered from years with Fibromyalgia pain and Severe Chronic Pain in his hips due to injuries racked up during when his performances started. His body was wracked with pain, Prince relied on opiate pain medications to provide him some relief.…
It is a chronic condition that renders sufferers so sensitive that even the lightest touch triggers waves of excruciating pain. Fibromyalgia is thought to affect up to a million Britons, commonly women over 40, and experts have likened the debilitating sensations to ‘death by a thousand needles’. Other symptoms include lack of concentration, memory loss, headaches, and muscle stiffness. And for a long time, there were little doctors could do to help quell the agony.…
A leg cramp is a pain that comes from a muscle in the leg. It is due to a muscle spasm which is when a muscle contracts too hard. It usually occurs in one of the calf muscles, below and behind a knee, but painful spasms can occur in the ankles, shins, and quads (the big muscles of the thigh). The small muscles of the feet are sometimes affected, usually starting with curling your toes…