July 5th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in News, Research
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Prescription opiates rose to one-third of all treatment admissions in 2009, from 8% in 1999, reflecting the rising trends in prescription opiate abuse. There were nearly 2 million substance abuse treatment admissions in 2009 among people ages 12 and older were reported to the Treatment Episode Data Set, a reporting system involving treatment facilities from across the country.
Five substance groups accounted for 96% of admissions: alcohol (42%), opiates (21%), marijuana (18%), cocaine (9%), and methamphetamine/amphetamines (6%), reported the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The data came from 49 states and Puerto Rico. Georgia and the District of Columbia did not report admissions for 2009. One person can be reported as multiple admissions in a year.
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*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
May 28th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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Heart-ache can be a literal thing, as well as a metaphor for all those weepy, jilted-lover torch songs.
Consensus thinking in the peer-review literature is that the parts of one’s brain responsible for physical pain, the dorsal anterior cingulate and anterior insula, also underlie emotional pain.
Researchers at Columbia University in New York recruited 40 people who’d recently ended a romantic relationship, put them in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, and recorded their reactions to physical and then emotional pain.
Physical pain was created by heating the person’s left forearm, compared to having the arm merely warmed. Emotional pain was created by looking at pictures of the former partner and remembering the breakup, compared to when looking at a photo of a friend.
The fMRI scans showed physical and emotional pain overlapped in the dorsal anterior cingulate and anterior insula, with overlapping increases in thalamus and right parietal opercular/insular cortex in the right side of the brain (opposite to the left arm).
The theory is that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
May 2nd, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Humor, Research
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Swearing really can relieve pain, but only if one doesn’t do it daily.
Researchers at Keele University in England have considered this topic before, and most recently, they studied whether people who swear more often in everyday life get as much pain relief from cursing as those who swear less frequently.
Researchers recruited 71 participants who completed a questionnaire that assessed how often they swore. Pain tolerance was assessed by how long participants could keep their unclenched hand in icy water (5° C, capped at 5 minutes) while repeating a chosen word. The word was either a swear word (self-selected from a list of five words the person might use after hitting their thumb with a hammer) or a control word (one of five they might use to describe a table). Interestingly, one person was excluded from the study because they did not list a swear word among their five choices.
Results appeared in NeuroReport.
Swearing increased pain tolerance and heart rate, and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. But, the more often people swear in daily life, the less time they were able to hold their hand in the icy water when swearing compared with when not swearing. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
April 14th, 2011 by Mary Lynn McPherson, Pharm.D. in Health Tips
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When it comes to treating chronic pain such as arthritis or low back pain, it’s important to remember that what works for one patient may not work for the next patient. Some people are able to control their pain by taking a nonprescription medication such as acetaminophen (Tylenol), while others may need an opioid (also known as narcotics). Tablets or capsules containing the opioid hydrocodone plus acetaminophen (known as Vicodin or Lortab) are among the most commonly dispensed medications in the US. But remember: just because this medication is popular doesn’t make it the best pain reliever for everyone!
For example, a recent study showed the older adults who were prescribed a short-acting opioid such as hydrocodone or oxycodone (e.g., Percocet) were twice as likely to break a bone in the following year compared to those on a long-acting opioid or a different pain medication altogether. How can doctors tell which pain medication to prescribe to best treat your pain, without increasing the risk of side effects? People also frequently turn to their pharmacist for medication advice – how does the pharmacist know what to recommend for your pain?
It all starts with a careful description of your pain. Read more »
April 10th, 2011 by admin in Book Reviews
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Narouze SN, ed. Atlas of Ultrasound-Guided Procedures in Interventional Pain Management. Springer 2011, 372 pages, 465 illustration, $189.00.
In 1941, Dr. Karl Theodore Dussik of Austria introduced the idea of using ultrasound waves as a diagnostic tool. Over the next few decades he, along with others like Professor Ian Donald of Scotland, developed the practical technology and applications of ultrasound in the field of medicine. Since then, ultrasound (US) has become progressively more useful across a wide range of medical specialties, for both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. US is quickly becoming the imaging modality of choice to guide practitioners in pain management and musculoskeletal interventions. Although fluoroscopy has long been a mainstay in image-guidance for such procedures, US provides an attractive alternative given its superior soft tissue resolution, allowance of real-time needle guidance, absence of iodinated contrast and lack of ionizing radiation.
The Atlas of Ultrasound-Guided Procedures in Interventional Pain Management by Narouze et al. is a comprehensive review of the principles of US-guidance as an aid in current pain management practices. It is divided into six parts and 30 chapters arranged by system and discipline. Leading experts in each discipline have contributed to this body of work, providing an extensive literature review encompassing each chapter. This text is meant to serve as a user-friendly manual, covering the anatomy, treatment rationale, and technical aspects of US-guided interventional pain management procedures. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at AJNR Blog*
