Blog
Shades of Grey: a Pro-Patient Approach to Chronic Pain
Opioids have garnered a great deal of media attention lately – much of it I’ve written about and been deeply interested in. As a doctor who has worked with people who suffer from the most severe forms of chronic pain throughout my medical career, I have witnessed both sides of the opioid issue. Many of…
Read MorePatient Story: Carolyn Tuft and the moment that changed everything
I met Carolyn Tuft while on vacation in Provence, France with my wife, Holly. At the hotel one morning, we found ourselves sitting across from Carolyn one morning, who sat stiffly in her chair – a fragile woman. Before I knew it, Carolyn was telling her story of pain and suffering – both physical and…
Read MoreResignation or Resilience: Choosing How to Face your Pain
Marsha Miller, my former patient and a forty-one-year old secretary, was bending down to fix a copy machine when she felt her back pop. She assumed that the pain she felt then was temporary and would go away with time. It didn’t. Weeks followed and Marsha attempted to resume her life until finally, her leg…
Read MorePatient Story: Jessy Klain on growing up with pain
Jessy was a sweet-tempered, soft-voiced Navajo girl of twelve from Page, Arizona who started to experience pain in her pelvic area about the time she was going through puberty. She found it hard to sit for hours on the hard seats of her junior high school, and friends had to carry her schoolbooks and open…
Read MoreHow 3 Simple Words Can Change a Life: I Believe You
At any given time, in the United States, about one third of the entire population is in pain. Half of all people sixty-five and older suffer from chronic pain. Untold numbers are caring for those who are in pain. While no one can escape pain’s effects it strikes me how unwilling we are as a…
Read MoreThe Painful Truth: Lending a Voice to Pain
At the beginning of my medical career, I met a patient who would change the trajectory of my life. He was a World War I veteran who suffered from arthritis, causing an excruciating grinding noise whenever he bent his limbs. Despite having risked his life for his country, his pain was so excruciating that whenever…
Read MoreSolving the Pain Dilemma
Chronic pain affects 1 in 3 Americans and exerts more than a $600-billion drain on the economy annually. It is the largest invisible epidemic we face. Having treated thousands of patients with chronic pain – often when they were at their most vulnerable – I want to improve the future for pain suffers. As one…
Read MoreA Note to Hillary Clinton: Please be Responsible with Opioids
While Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton only recently announced her bid for office in 2016, she has already declared a few important issues on her presidential agenda, including the ever-important opioid crisis in the United States. Many are chiming in to offer their best solutions to curbing the opioid abuse epidemic; sadly, many of the proposed…
Read MoreClinical Pain Advisor: Report on Opioids During Pregnancy Harms Pain Community
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Clinical Pain Advisor in response to an earlier story titled: Opioids During Pregnancy Affect Birth Weight, Respiratory Health. Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported a well-known link between opioid use during pregnancy and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) in a recently published study that is quickly gaining traction online. It is sparking a great deal of controversy — in part because there is…
Read MoreIneffective Treatment Associated with the Chronification of Pain
By Barby Ingle, President Power of Pain Foundation As a leader in the pain community and someone who personally advocates for pain patients on a daily basis, I strongly believe that we can combat the issues of abuse while still giving patients who need pain relief a safe, effective and accountable access to these medications.…
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