Category Archives: Pain-Relief

Yoga May Help Reduce Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms Through Restoring Autonomic Balance

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Dr. Hemant Bhargav, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Integrative Medicine
National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS)
Hosur Main Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India 560029

Opioid withdrawal is marked by sympathovagal imbalance, the fight or flight response system of the body remains overactive while its calming system is underactive. This dysregulation contributes to anxiety, poor sleep, pain, and heightened relapse vulnerability. While medications like buprenorphine effectively manage withdrawal symptoms, they do not fully restore this autonomic balance, representing a critical therapeutic gap.


PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Opioid withdrawal is marked by sympathovagal imbalance, the fight or flight response system of the body remains overactive while its calming system is underactive. This dysregulation contributes to anxiety, poor sleep, pain, and heightened relapse vulnerability. While medications like buprenorphine effectively manage withdrawal symptoms, they do not fully restore this autonomic balance, representing a critical therapeutic gap.

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AHRQ Review Evaluates Cannabis Products Containing THC and CBD for Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Roger Chou, MD
Professor of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine
Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine
2012-present Director, Pacific Northwest Evidence-based Practice Center
Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, Oregon

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: We started this review five years ago, it was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (part of the Department of Health and Human Services). Because there is a lot of interest in use of cannabis products for pain and because new research is coming out, we planned to do it as a “living” review, which means that instead of reviewing all the studies at one point of time and publishing the findings and then being done, we continually searched for new studies and updated our analyses as they became available. We conducted this review over 5 years and this article reports the final findings of the review.

An important thing to know is that cannabis products are complicated because cannabis contains different chemicals that are thought to have different properties, the most important being THC and CBD.  THC is considered the psychoactive component and CBD isn’t thought to have psychoactive properties but may have medical or therapeutic properties.  Different cannabis products (as well as the plants themselves) vary in how much THC or CBD is contained, ranging from “pure” THC or CBD to mixed products.  We separated cannabis products into different categories based on the amount of THC relative to CBD, which is important because the benefits or harms may vary according to how much THC or CBD is present.  We also looked at whether the products were taken from the plant or made in a lab (synthetic) as well as how the products were taken (e.g., a capsule or cream/oil or spray etc) which can all impact how the products work.

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Vertex Study Finds PreOp JOURNAVX Can Deliver Effective Pain Relief and Reduce Need for Opioids

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Vertex Spokesperson

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Effective management of acute postoperative pain remains an ongoing challenge, with opioids continuing to serve as a mainstay despite their well-known risks, including nausea, constipation and the potential for misuse or addiction. Suzetrigine, brand name JOURNAVX, is a novel, selective NaV1.8 inhibitor that provides effective pain relief without engaging the brain’s reward system, meaning it has no addiction potential. JOURNAVX was approved earlier this year in the U.S. for the treatment of moderate-to-severe acute pain in adults.

Previous randomized, controlled studies demonstrated that JOURNAVX provided statistically significant postoperative pain relief compared to placebo and efficacy similar to a moderate-strength opioid. This study was designed to evaluate the real-world effectiveness and opioid-sparing potential of JOURNAVX when initiated preoperatively and used as part of multimodal therapy across a variety of aesthetic and reconstructive procedures.

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Neuropathy: New Nano-Formulated CBD May Enhance Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Kuan Hong Wang, PhD
Professor of Neuroscience
 Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester
Senior author of the study

Dr. Wang

Jingyu Feng, PhD
Staff scientist
Wang Lab
First author of the study

Dr. Veng.

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Neuropathic pain is one of the most difficult chronic pain conditions to treat. Current medications such as gabapentin and opioids often provide limited relief and cause unwanted side effects. Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive compound derived from cannabis, has shown promise for pain relief, but its poor water solubility and limited ability to reach the brain have constrained its effectiveness. To overcome this challenge, our team developed a new nano-formulated version of CBD, called CBD-IN, designed to make CBD more soluble and efficient at reaching the brain.

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Online Self-Guided Tai Chi Program Shows Promise in Reducing Knee Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Julia Zhu
Physiotherapist | PhD Candidate 
Centre for Health Exercise and Sports Medicine 
Department of Physiotherapy, Melbourne School of Health Sciences
The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Tai Chi is a type of exercise recommended for people with chronic knee pain caused by osteoarthritis. However, Tai Chi is traditionally taught in person, often in group settings that involve cost, travel and scheduling. These barriers can make participation difficult, especially for people living in regional and remote areas. There is also limited evidence showing the effect of online Tai Chi for people with chronic knee pain.

To address this, the team at the University of Melbourne developed the online unsupervised Tai Chi program (“My Joint Tai Chi”) in collaboration with a panel of expert Tai Chi instructors and people with osteoarthritis. The collaboration ensures “My Joint Tai Chi”  is appropriate for people with hip and/or knee osteoarthritis, safe for them to perform at home unsupervised and practical to be delivered online using pre-recorded videos. We then tested this program in a two-arm superiority randomized controlled trial, comparing it to an online education-only control group among people with clinically diagnosed knee osteoarthritis in Australia. 

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Acupuncture Found Safe, Effective and Long Lasting for Chronic Lower Back Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Lynn L. DeBar, PhD, MPH
Center for Health Research Distinguished Investigator
Center for Health Research
Portland OR 97227
Kaiser Permanente

Dr. DeBar

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: The study was initiated in response to a call for applications from the National Institute of Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that they put forward because of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) interest in that time in considering acupuncture as a covered Medicare benefit for older adults with chronic low back pain.

While acupuncture for the treatment in chronic lower back pain had been well studied for broader adults, little had focused specifically on its effectiveness among older adults. CMS was particularly interested in acupuncture as a potentially safer and more effective treatment than medications like opioids for pain management among older adults.

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Potent Synthetic Opioids Driving Current Overdose Crisis

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Shravani Durbhakula, MD, MPH, MBA
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, 
Division of Pain Medicine 
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine 
Medical Director, Comprehensive Pain Service 
Vanderbilt University Medical Center 

Shravani Durbhakula, MD, MPH, MBA Associate Professor of Anesthesiology,  Division of Pain Medicine  Vanderbilt University School of Medicine  Medical Director, Comprehensive Pain Service  Vanderbilt University Medical Center 
Dr. Durbhakula

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Our study highlights the rapid rise of nitazenes—extremely potent and dangerous synthetic opioids—silently driving the current overdose crisis. Developed in the 1950s by a pharmaceutical company and never approved for clinical use, nitazenes are up to 20 times more potent than fentanyl and are undetectable with standard drug tests available in emergency rooms.

These opioids are often mixed into counterfeit pills or other street drugs, posing an unseen threat. Furthermore, nitazenes interact with opioid receptors in a unique way, increasing overdose risk, heightening respiratory depression, and accelerating tolerance development, which makes them even more dangerous for users.

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University of Sydney Study Finds Brainstem Contains a Circuit that can Produce Pain Relief in Specific Body Parts

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Lewis Crawford, B.Sci (Hons), PhD
Postdoctoral associate
Neural Imaging Laboratory | Faculty of Medicine and Health
Brain and Mind Centre
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 

Dr. Crawford

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: The overall aim of our research is to determine the functioning of analgesic circuits in individuals with chronic pain. If we can identify these circuits, we will then in a position to activate them to produce pain relief. One way to explore analgesic circuits in humans is through the use of placebo analgesia paradigms.

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Adjusting Gait May Help Provide Pain Relief from Knee Osteoarthritis

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Valentina Mazzoli, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Radiology-CBI
Translational Research Building
NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Dr. Mazzoli

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Knee osteoarthritis is a very common and painful condition that limits mobility and is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Unfortunately, there are no disease-modifying treatments available. Symptoms are usually managed with painkillers, and in the most severe cases, with knee replacement surgery?

In our study, we showed that subtly adjusting the angle of the foot during walking may be an easy, inexpensive way to reduce knee pain in people with early-stage osteoarthritis.

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ICAHN Mount Sinai Analysis Suggests Women Should Be Careful About Using Acetaminophen During Pregnancy

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Diddier Prada, MD, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor 
Institute for Health Equity Research
Department of Population Health Science and Policy 
Department of Environmental Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai 
New York City, NY, USA
https://scholars.mssm.edu/en/persons/diddier-prada

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Earlier research has indicated that using acetaminophen (such as Tylenol) during pregnancy might increase the likelihood of children developing neurodevelopmental conditions like autism or ADHD.

Data shows that more than half of pregnant women rely on acetaminophen in some regions. Various well-conducted studies, including long-term group observations and case-comparison analyses, have identified a potential association, though some found no relationship, and a few even hinted at a possible protective effect. However, these studies often faced challenges, such as depending on mothers’ memory for usage data, failing to consider underlying reasons for taking the drug (e.g., illness or fever), or employing inconsistent approaches, which complicates drawing firm conclusions. By applying a transparent and consistent framework, the Navigation Guide methodology, to assess the studies’ quality, credibility, and evidence strength, we aimed to offer a more reliable overview than previous reviews.

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