“Many people with Parkinson’s disease who are given drugs to increase dopamine develop shopping addiction.”
Day: 11/29/2014
2/12/2013, Opioids and Road Trauma: Is It the Medicine, the Pain, or Both?
Under comments:
Mark Wallace, University of California San Diego: “There was a study in the late 1990s (see attached slides below on earlier studies on effects of opioids and driving) that looked at cancer patients on >200 mg/day oral morphine equivalent with controlled pain, and compared them to matched cancer patients not on opioids with uncontrolled pain. Study participants performed driving tests, and the ones not on opioids with uncontrolled pain performed worse.
11/2014, Self-Conscious Emotions in Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25420522?dopt=Abstract
“The role of self-conscious emotions (SCEs) including shame, guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment are of increasing interest within health. Yet little is known about SCEs in the experience of chronic pain.”
10/10/2014, #14Days: Dying for pain relief in the opioid epidemic
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/14days-dying-for-pain-relief-opioid-abuse/#postComments
“So, it’s no surprise that doctors then don’t treat addiction because they don’t know how to do it, they don’t have the skills, they don’t have the knowledge, and they don’t have the confidence,” she says.
There’s a reason that addiction is not a recognized medical specialty, but that won’t stop the industry from growing.
Current Funding Opportunities at the NIH Pain Consortium
http://painconsortium.nih.gov/Funding_Opps/highlighted-initiatives.html
Mechanistic Studies of Pain and Alcohol Dependence
Biology of the Temporomandibular Joint in Health and Disease
Clinical Evaluation of Adjuncts to Opioid Therapies for the Treatment of Chronic Pain
Self-Management for Health in Chronic Conditions
9/3/2014, DEA to scrutinize hospital pharmacists for opioid monitoring
“For example, in September 2013, FDA issued new labeling for long-acting and extended-release opioids, requiring that these drugs be used only for severe pain by patients needing continuous daily treatment over the long term and for whom alternative treatments are not adequate.”
Meet your new doctors: the DEA and the FDA.
2/2/2009, Best Treatment for TMJ May Be Nothing
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/health/03brod.html
I guess a lot of TMJ specialists don’t read the New York Times, because they’re still making big bucks on treatments that have been proven not to work.
11/18/2014, CU-Boulder study shows differences in brain’s processing of emotional, physical pain
“The prevailing belief that the two types of pain are neurologically the same had led to some new strategies for treating social pain, even including the use of traditional painkillers, to ease emotional discomfort.”
11/19/2014, Mortality Up for Long-Term Opioid Users With Chronic Pain
http://www.physiciansbriefing.com/Article.asp?AID=693805
Yes, chronic pain patients have shorter lifespans, that’s not news. Is the shorter lifespan due to opioid therapy, or the stress that constant pain puts on the brain and body? If these pain patients had decided not to use opioid treatment, would that have expanded or shortened their lives?