Pain Management
As CDC Guidelines Approach One-Year Anniversary, Questions Loom
“Next month will mark the one year anniversary of opioid guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – guidelines that discourage primary care physicians from prescribing opioids for chronic non-cancer pain,” writes Pat Anson in the February 15, 2017 edition the Pain News Network newsletter. My Expectations for CDC Opioid Guidelines One…
Read MoreConstipation Isn’t a Fitting Punishment for People With Pain
Deb was in a near-fatal car accident. Her arms, legs, and pelvis were severely injured and would require multiple surgeries. She relied on opioids to ease the pain. Along with her other day-to-day medical challenges and constant setbacks, she suffered from constipation which her doctor attributed to her use of painkillers. But he offered no…
Read MoreHurting Pain Patients Is Not the Way to Solve the Opioid Crisis
“The insurance industry appears to have played a major role in the development of a new strategy by the federal government to combat the abuse of opioid pain medication,” writes Pat Anson, editor of Pain News Network. This Orwellian act by powerful insurance companies in collaboration with the US Department of Health and Human…
Read MoreWhat Happens When Pain Changes a Cop’s Perspective?
A cop who arrested addicts is now experiencing life as a pain patient and has a much different perspective. You can read Nick Selby’s first-person account of “what happens when pain meets bad health policy and bad drug laws” in the Washington Post. He tells his story well, and it’s one that’s familiar to…
Read MoreMisguided Repeal to Cure Opioid Crisis Ignores Patients’ Pain
Once again, I read the Intractable Pain Act (along with the section of it known as the “Pain Patient’s Bill of Rights”) which was passed by the Tennessee House and Senate in 2001 and repealed in 2015. I did not see anything in the legislation that supports the statement made by Knox News columnist Frank…
Read MoreEmotional Trauma Affects Boys and Girls Differently: What You Need To Know
Emotional Trauma Affects Boys and Girls Differently More than a decade ago, I published an article proposing a tool that providers could use to help assess the risk of someone’s developing opioid aberrant drug-related behaviors if prescribed an opioid. The instrument is commonly called the opioid risk tool, and it is still commonly used today.…
Read MorePharmacies May be Blackballing Physicians Writing Opioid Prescriptions. What You Need to Know Now
Are Pharmacies Blackballing Physicians Writing Opioids? A colleague, Dr. Bill Jones (not his real name), recently wrote me about a serious threat to his career. One of Dr. Jones’s patients, who is on chronic opioid therapy, told him that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had blackballed him. The patient tried to get a prescription for…
Read MoreThis is Why DEA Action Continues Catch-22 of Marijuana Research
A 57-year-old firefighter with chronic neck and back pain left a comment on my blog to ask: If they can send a man to the moon, why can’t they make a medication with no side effects that is not addictive and that can control pain? My response is that we do have the ability,…
Read MoreThe United State of Grief
This is a follow up to a guest blog my friend, Steve D. Passik, posted here on September 21, 2016, called “The Painful Later Years of Frances Passik.” Steven D. Passik, Ph.D., is a Pennsylvania-based pain psychologist. I’m proud to call him a friend. He is a giant in the field of pain medicine, but…
Read MoreThe Painful Later Years of Frances Passik
Steven D. Passik, Ph.D., is a Pennsylvania-based pain psychologist. I’m proud to call him a friend. He is a giant in the field of pain medicine, but that doesn’t make his family members immune to the problems that other chronic patients face. Steve lost his mother on September 14, 2016. He’s given me permission…
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