It’s understandable that an advertising agency would have trouble accurately conveying the problems of drug dependence and addiction when the media, too, often has difficulty communicating the facts.
It’s important to help children master their response to pain in age-appropriate ways. Children who have the emotional and cognitive ability to understand and determine their response to an injury generally suffer less. This is self-efficacy, and it allows the child to feel in control.
This article, in a slightly edited form, first appeared in The Hill on July 27, 2017. Drug Prices Are Soaring Across the board, drug prices are soaring. Even the cost of cancer medications are so high that some patients are delaying cancer treatments or skipping them altogether. But who is most responsible for higher drug prices: pharmaceutical…
Some research suggests that the products’ packaging can leach such chemicals as bisphenol A (BPA) and perfluoroalky and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or that these toxins may act as endocrine interrupters and cause cancers, infertility, and other health problems.
Adverse childhood experiences rewire the brain. The heightened response to stress that some children develop can affect the reward center of the brain and the executive functioning of the prefrontal cortex. It can also result in maladaptive behaviors associated with pain and addiction.
I worried that the hospital’s choice to lessen the amount of drugs prescribed, rather than focusing on patients’ clinical needs, might mean my daughter’s need for pain control would be unmet. The idea of my daughter enduring inadequately treated pain haunted me, as it would any father, but as a pain specialist, it may have troubled me even more.
This article, in a slightly edited form, first appeared on Pain News Network on May 31, 2019. “Treatment Box: Rebekkah’s Story” won an Emmy for Outstanding Special Class – Short Format Daytime Program at the 46th Annual Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The 6-minute video was produced by The Truth About Opioids, which is an opioid…
Those statistics are difficult to read anytime, but they seem especially troubling as the United States commemorates Memorial Day. This is the time for us to acknowledge that those who have served our country deserve the best medical care available.
This article, in a slightly edited form, first appeared in Consumer Health Digest on May 15, 2019. Everyone has heard the phrase “opioid addiction,” but few understand what that really means. Journalists, patients, and even many doctors believe they know what addiction is, but they are often wrong. This leads many people to be diagnosed…
Black box warnings may be alarming. However, they are not meant to scare you into panicking and discontinuing medication that you need. Their primary purpose is to inform prescribers and patients about dangers they may pose.
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