Understand chronic diseases, their causes, common symptoms, and effective management strategies to improve long-term health and quality of life.
It’s a trickle at present, but the conversation around chronic pain between doctors and patients is no longer one way only. Over the past few months, the constant messaging suggesting chronic pain patients are dying in dramatically increasing numbers because of opioid overdoses has been questioned. Understand, the messaging was indeed clever. Chronic pain patients weren’t directly and specifically named, but the messaging caused listeners and readers to believe it was pain patients whose lives…
Lyrica is the brand name for a prescription medicine called pregabalin. Although it is an anticonvulsant or an anti-epileptic drug, pregabalin is commonly prescribed to alleviate nerve or neuropathic pain – a type of pain caused by damage to, or a disease affecting nerves. Neuropathic pain doesn’t normally respond to common painkillers such as ibuprofen or paracetamol. This is because the mechanisms that cause neuropathic pain are different from the underlying causes of other pain. History Pregabalin is closely related…
Another study is raising questions about the safety of the anti-seizure drug gabapentin, especially when it’s taken with opioid pain medication. According to research published online in PLOS Medicine, combining gabapentin with opioid painkillers is associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from an opioid overdose than opioid use alone. “Clinicians should consider carefully whether to continue prescribing this combination of products and when deemed necessary, should closely monitor their patients and adjust opioid dose accordingly,” wrote…
Sometimes all it takes is a simple gesture from someone you love to help you feel a little bit better. We asked people who live with chronic illnesses to share one (seemingly) small thing their partner has done for them that touched their hearts. This is what they had to say: 1. “[My partner] reminds me daily I am wanted and needed and not just a burden.” — Ally Small 2. “I often feel bad that I can’t do…
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently shared his idea for solving the opioid crisis: aspirin, sleep, and less marijuana. Speaking at an event in Tampa on Tuesday to celebrate Ronald Regan’s birthday, Sessions said his goal for 2018 is to see a greater decline in the number of opioids prescribed (he said last year there was a 7 percent decline). “We think doctors are just prescribing too many. Sometimes you just need two Bufferin or…
Addiction to opioids often begins in the doctor’s office. These drugs are typically the only option to manage pain after an operation or in patients with serious injuries. They’re also frequently prescribed to patients with chronic pain, and it’s these patients who are most at risk for opioid addiction. Ted Price is an associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas. His work focuses on the molecular mechanisms that cause pain to persist…
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.…