COVID Effects on Nerves May Lead to Better Pain Relief Medications

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Venetia Zachariou PhD
Edward Avedisian Professor
Chair of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

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

Response: COVID-19, the disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection, is associated with highly variable clinical outcomes that range from asymptomatic disease to death. For those with milder infections, COVID-19 can produce respiratory infection symptoms (cough, congestion, fever)  as well as loss of the sense of smell.

A substantial number of actively infected patients suffering from both mild and severe infections experience sensory-related symptoms, such as headache, visceral pain, Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), nerve pain and inflammation. In most patients these symptoms subside after the infection ends, but, for other patients, they can persist. 

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Patient Preferred Music Therapy Reduced Pain in Real World Settings

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Seneca Block, Ph.D(c), MT-BC  
Board Certified Music Therapist and
The Lauren Rich Fine Endowed Director for Expressive Therapies
University Hospitals Connor Whole Health

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

Response: University Hospitals Connor Whole Health has developed an extensive network of inpatient music therapy programs through out 8 major community medical centers across North Eastern Ohio. Music therapy is an evidence-based practice that was used through out these locations to provide front-line non pharmacological treatment of pain, stress and anxiety.

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Sciatica: Surgical Treatment May Provide Only Temporary Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Chang Liu
Researcher, PHD Student
University of Sydney

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

Response: Sciatica is a common condition caused by lumbar nerve root compression and/or inflammation, usually due to a herniated disc. Non-surgical treatments, such as exercise, are recommended as the first step, with pharmacological and interventional options available if needed.

Surgery, specifically discectomy, is a common treatment for sciatica but evidence supporting its effectiveness is uncertain. 

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JAMA Study Finds Clinicians Not Maximizing Opportunities to Initiate Buprenorphine Treatment For Patients With Opioid Addiction

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Kao-Ping Chua, MD, PhD
Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center
Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School
Ann Arbor MI 48109

Kao-Ping Chua

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

Response: Opioid overdose deaths are at a record high in the U.S. Many opioid overdose deaths can be prevented by medications for opioid use disorder, such as buprenorphine, a drug that can prescribed in office settings. However, buprenorphine cannot prevent opioid overdose deaths if patients are never started on the medication or only stay on the medication for a short time. For that reason, rates of buprenorphine initiation and retention are critical metrics for measuring how well the U.S. health care system is responding to the opioid epidemic.

At the time we started our study, several other research groups had evaluated U.S. rates of buprenorphine initiation and retention using data through 2020. However, more recent national data were lacking. We felt that this was an important knowledge gap given the many changes in society that have occurred since 2020. For example, it was possible that the relaxation of social distancing measures during 2021 and 2022 might have reduced barriers to health care visits, thereby increasing opportunities to initiate treatment for opioid addiction with buprenorphine.

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EVALI – Vaping and Lung Injury – Storylines on Popular Medical Dramas May Change Behavior

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Beth Hoffman, PhD, MPH (she/her)
Postdoctoral Associate
Center for Social Dynamics and Community Health
Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health

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

Response: Previous studies suggested that hearing about EVALI in the news might stop people from vaping or get them to quit, but there had yet to be research examining if storylines on fictional medical television shows could have the same effects. There had also been few studies to date leveraging Twitter data, which allowed us to see how viewers were reacting to the storylines in real-time, in their organic viewing environment.

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High School Students Risk Back Pain with Prolonged Texting and Cell Phone Use

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Prof. Dr. Alberto De Vitta
Department of Physical Therapy
Centro Universitário das Faculdades Integradas de Ourinhos
Água do Cateto, Ourinhos
Brazil

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

Response: This research is part of a line of research that addresses the intersectoriality between education and health, in which it seeks to study the various risk factors of the educational environment that can influence the health of schoolchildren.

PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?

Response: In this study the main results were:  There is high prevalence and incidence of Thoracic Spine Pain (TSP) in high school students and the TSP is associated with the female sex, mental health problems, and body posture while using cell phones, tablets, and PCs as well as with the duration of use of cell phone and tablet.

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NSAIDs May Elevate Risk of Heart Failure in Diabetic Patients

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Dr Anders Holt
Department of Cardiology
Copenhagen University Hospital–Herlev and Gentofte
Hellerup, Denmark

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

Response: Type 2 diabetes mellitus has been related to cardiomyopathy and subclinical heart failure, as well as compromised kidney function. Likewise, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can cause fluid retention and have been previously linked to heart disease. Thus, use of NSAIDs in patients with T2DM could be expected to increase risk of heart failure (HF), possibly by worsening already prevalent subclinical HF or by aberrating fluid balances. Specific recommendations for short-term use in patients with T2DM, along with exploration of proposed mechanisms, are scarce, especially considering that NSAIDs are among the most used prescription and over-the-counter drugs worldwide.

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Stopping Pot May Reverse Some Loss of Male Fertility

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Jamie Lo, M.D., M.C.R.
Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
OHSU School of Medicine
Division of Reproductive & Developmental Sciences
Adjunct Associate Professor of Urology, School of Medicine
Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC)

Dr. Jamie Lo

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

Response: Cannabis use and potency are rising, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially amongst reproductive age males in the United States. There is emerging literature suggesting it may impact male fertility, but it is hard to study in humans for many reasons, including often individuals using cannabis are also using other substances and there is no ability to test how much or often cannabis was used. As such, we wanted to use a translational animal model, the non-human primate, that is relevant to humans to study the direct effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, main component of cannabis) only on male fertility and to determine whether there is a benefit to abstinence from use.

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Study Finds Uncertain Effectiveness of Common Medications for Low Back Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Dr. Wewege

Dr Michael Wewege, PhD
Research Fellow – Neuroscience Research Australia

Prof. McAuley

Prof James McAuley, PhD
Director – Centre for Pain IMPACT, Neuroscience Research Australia,
Professor – School of Health Sciences,
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia




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

Response: We conducted this study because medicines are the most common treatment for adults with acute non-specific low back pain. One of the most important questions is “What is the best medicine to use?” We wanted to compare the medicines with each other because this is the information patients and physicians want to know, but previous research has focused on only comparing medicines to placebo. Physicians are deciding between these medicines based on their clinical expertise; we hoped to support their decision making with a rigorous piece of research.

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Study Evaluates Equine-Facilitated Therapy For Back Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Sanna Mattila-Rautiainen
Biomedicine, Sports and Exercise Medicine
University of Eastern Finland

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

Response: The background of our study is to evaluate the effect of 12 weeks Equine Facilitated Physical therapy intervention for Chronic Low Back Pain patients´ functional impairments that were self-assessed, to their wellbeing and amount of pain.

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