Posts by Lynn Webster, M.D.
The DEA Raids the Offices of My Friend and Colleague, Dr. Tennant
DEA Raids Offices of a Prominent Pain Physician According to Pain News Network, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has conducted a raid on the offices of Dr. Forest Tennant, “confiscating all of his patient records, appointment books and financial documents.” A prominent California-based pain physician, Dr. Tennant is a valued friend and colleague. Unfortunately, I…
Read MoreRevealing the Hidden Pain Crisis
Our Perception of Pain Depends on Time and Culture Pain seems universal and irrefutable. Surprisingly, though, our perception and treatment of pain have always depended on time and culture. Currently, pain isn’t considered to be as important as the opioid crisis. The voices of people in pain are often ignored. Sometimes, those who have pain…
Read MoreWays to Help a Recovering Senior Addict Parent from a Distance
Photo via Pixabay By Marie Villeza, Guest Columnist When your senior parent is fighting addiction in a recovery treatment center, and you live far away, it becomes difficult to identify what you can do to help her. Recognized as an “invisible epidemic,” many relatives of seniors hooked on drugs or alcohol first have problems accepting…
Read MoreHow Do You Know If You Are Addicted?
Babies Can’t Be Addicted “Babies Born Addicted,” “Addicted Babies,” “Babies with Addiction,” and similar headlines appear nearly daily in the media. This is because babies exhibit horrible withdrawal symptoms if they are born physically dependent on opioids, and it pulls at our heartstrings to see them suffer. But it misleads media consumers, policymakers, and family…
Read MoreSilence Is Acceptance
I like a million other people who have commented on your blog live with debilitating chronic pain each and every day…… I wanted to know from you is there a place where we chronic pain sufferers can go to plead our cases, to be heard? Is there a way we can get our word…
Read MoreWhat the CDC Can Learn From Utah
Opioid Overdoses Increase Despite CDC’s Efforts Everyone can agree on a few things. First, we have an opioid epidemic. Second, we want to mitigate it. Third, the efforts we’ve seen at the national level to ameliorate the crisis are not working. As USA Today recently reported, the opioid epidemic is getting worse instead of better.…
Read MoreCongratulations to American Scientists Hall, Rosbash, and Young
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young’s Genetic Discovery Three American scientists, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young, jointly won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. They earned the prestigious award for discovering the genes that control circadian rhythms. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute issued a press…
Read MoreDo Opioids Impact Life Expectancy?
Meet Rachel and Lorna Meet Rachel * and Lorna. They are very different women, but they have one thing in common: they both used opioids. One morning, Rachel maneuvered her maroon Civic into a parking place at a local breakfast joint to buy opioids from her dealer. Accompanied by her two-year-old daughter and her brother,…
Read MoreInsomnia Is More Than an Inconvenience
“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.” ‒William Shakespeare, Macbeth Why We Need Sleep Shakespeare may be complicated, but the universal need for sleep is not. The “Chief nourisher” is, indeed,…
Read MoreHarvey and Irma: A Harvest of Friends, Family, and Tolerance
We Believed in a Melting Pot Hurricanes Harvey and Irma were tragedies, but if there was a silver lining, it was that they brought out the best in people. They reminded us that humans can overcome partisanship and tribal differences to help one another. For generations, many of us took pride in thinking of the…
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