Pain Management News & Features

Chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain – the kind that keeps people from life’s daily activities – affect 1 in 12 Americans, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New research suggests that a good many back pain patients might find relief in a "dummy" sugar pill, eliminating their need for strong medication.

The researchers said there's been a sharp rise in opioid prescriptions in the past 20 years -- an increase that exceeds actual rates of pain in the population. It's possible that too often, opioids are being prescribed for conditions that don't warrant treatment with the drugs, researchers said.

In this study, researchers led by Dr. Emiko Petrosky from the U.S. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control analyzed data on more than 123,000 suicides in 18 states between 2003 and 2014.

AT-121 provided the same level of pain relief as a typical opioid, but at a 100-times lower dose than morphine, according to the research team from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Researchers found that most older Americans who are prescribed opioids aren't advised about the dangers of the drugs, how to use fewer of them, when to use non-opioid alternatives, or what to do with leftover opioids.

Nearly nine out of every 10 adults -- 85 percent -- believe that marijuana should be legalized for medical use, a new HealthDay/Harris Poll has found. And more than half, 57 percent, support the legalization of recreational marijuana.

The study included a 20-question survey of nearly 150 seniors who had used medical marijuana for chronic pain. The seniors had received their medical marijuana from dispensaries in New York or Minnesota.

Congress May Soon Make CBD From Hemp Legal June 18, 2018 -- Legislation that includes a measure to legalize hemp, rich in the compound used to produce numerous CBD oil products, made significant progress last week. The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee overwhelmingly endorsed the Farm Bill, known also as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, by a vote of 20 to 1 on June 13.Although it’s a type of cannabis plant like marijuana, hemp does not produce the ''high" of THC. It’s often used in industrial products and also contains cannabidiol, or CBD; much more, in fact,

A driving force behind this is the growing effort to find a long-term replacement for opioids, an addictive painkiller that has plunged the country into an epidemic of death and addiction.

Sales of CBD products are expected to hit $1 billion by the year 2020, yet research into the marijuana-derivative's actual usefulness remains light. Advocates say it will cure what ails you. Some have doubts.

Opioid prescribing in the United States rose 350 percent between 1999 and 2015, and the rate of overdose deaths from both prescription opioids and heroin also increased exponentially during that time.

Last month, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel unanimously recommended approval of the CBD medication Epidiolex to treat two rare forms of childhood epilepsy.

The top five drugs in shortest supply are opioids like hydromorphone (Dilaudid), fentanyl and morphine, the local anesthetic bupivacaine, and the lifesaving allergy drug epinephrine, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) survey found.

Researchers found that pricey devices were generally no better than inexpensive store-bought inserts -- or any other "conservative" treatment -- when it came to managing plantar fasciitis.

With opioid overdose deaths rising in the United States, the findings suggest addictive medications like oxycodone (OxyContin) or morphine don't have to be the first choice against crippling arthritis pain or chronic backache.

The research showed that a gluten-free diet may help reduce nerve pain in some people with gluten sensitivity.

The researchers found that length of time on opioids didn't affect people's success at reducing the drugs. Neither did the dose they took prior to the study.

Nearly all of kratom's major compounds bind to opioid receptors in the human brain, and two of the top five most prevalent compounds activate those receptors, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.

Tamper-resistant opioid pills -- one attempt to curb prescription painkiller abuse -- aren't stopping overuse and overdosing, at least in Australia, new research shows.

The study of more than 1.5 million older Americans found that people were no more likely to visit the doctor with joint or back pain during rainy weeks than sunny ones.

When patients received a non-opioid medication called gabapentin before and after surgery, the need for continued opioid painkillers was reduced by 24 percent, said researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Nearly 92 million Americans used a powerful prescription painkiller in 2015, survey shows

Opioid Prescriptions Fall, But Still High: CDC

Doctors say it can treat intense pain, but patients should stay on the drug for shortest time possible