Tag Archives: #pain

WalkBack Trial: Simple Exercise Strategy plus Education Can Help Prevent Recurrence of Low Back Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Natasha C Pocovi
Department of Health Sciences
Macquarie University, Sydney
NSW, Australia

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

Response: Approximately 620 million people globally, reported suffering low back pain in 2020. While it’s not considered a life-threatening disease, we can see the very serious impacts it can have on people’s lifestyle, ability to work, and overall quality of life. While much work is being done to treat low back pain, ‘prevention’ is mostly unchartered territory. This is particularly important given the high rates of recurrent low back pain, where 7 in 10 people who recover from an episode of low back pain will have a new episode in the next 12 months.

A small number of studies have examined exercise to prevent the recurrence of low back pain. These have primarily focused on group-based, complex exercises focusing on a combination of strengthening and improving the endurance and flexibility of the spine. Some of these were delivered over several supervised sessions, some as many as 20 x 1-hour sessions. This becomes less feasible for patients to engage in.

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EULAR 2024: Non-Articular Pain Common in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

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PainRelief.com Interview with:

Charis F. Meng, MD
Rheumatologist, Inflammatory Arthritis Center
Assistant Attending Physician
Hospital for Special Surgery
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College

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

Response: Non-articular pain (NAP) is common in our patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and may impact remission outcomes.  However, it is challenging for busy rheumatologists to address specific pain types in our patients with RA, as it is not well defined in the literature, nor has it been validated in RA.  NAP in RA care thus is an unmet need for both our patients with RA and rheumatologists caring for them. 

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Pain Perception May Occur Differently in Men and Women

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Frank Porreca, PhD
Associate Department Head, Pharmacology
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Professor, Anesthesiology
Professor, Cancer Biology – GIDP
Professor, Neuroscience – GIDP
Professor, Pharmacology
College of Medicine
University of Arizona

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

Response: Our research concerns the mechanisms that initiate perception of pain rather than the experience of pain itself. 

Pain commonly results from activation of sensory fibers called nociceptors.  Nociceptors normally are activated by high intensity stimuli (e.g., like touching a hot stove) but not by low intensity stimuli (like touch itself). But, when there is an injury like a mild inflammation such as a sunburn, then light touch like the rubbing of your shirt on your sunburned neck can produce activation of nociceptors and the perception of pain.  This indicates that the thresholds for activation of the nociceptors has decreased so that normally innocuous stimuli can now result in pain.  The mechanisms by which the thresholds for activation of nociceptors are decreased are important as this can promote instances of pain from normally nonpainful stimuli, movement of joints, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, temporomandibular disorder etc… 

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Cannabis Components Terpenes Tested for Neuropathic Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
John M. Streicher, PhD
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Professor, Neuroscience – GIDP
Professor, Pharmacology
College of Medicine, Tucson
University of Arizona

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

Response: Cannabis has many chemical components that have potential therapeutic benefits, however, the great majority of research to date has focused on the major cannabinoids THC and CBD. In the past, different groups have tested the pharmacological effects of terpenes, which are small aromatic compounds in Cannabis and other plants that impart taste and aroma. They found pain relieving and anti-inflammatory effects, in both pre-clinical and clinical studies. However, those studies mostly did not test the therapeutic aspects of terpenes like side effects and dosing routes, and the mechanism of action in pain is also mostly unclear.

We thus began our studies by comprehensively testing a set of 5 terpenes for their pharmacological and therapeutic effects. In 2021, we published a paper showing the terpenes had cannabinoid-like behavioral effects, and also worked through the Cannabinoid Receptor 1 and the Adenosine A2a Receptor to carry out these effects. We also found that they had stronger effects when combined with a cannabinoid.

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Study Finds Liposomal Bupivacaine Alone Not Sufficient to Control Pain During Surgery

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Professor Peter Marhofer, MD
Director of Paediatric Anaesthesia
Senior Researcher Paediatric and Regional Anaesthesia
Medical University of Vienna
Department of Anaesthesia, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Medicine
Vienna, Austria

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

Response: One of the major limitations in the use of local anaesthetics is their limited duration of action. In recent years, liposomal formulations with prolonged release kinetics have been developed with the idea to control the sensation of pain not only during but also after surgery and thus achieving an opioid-sparing effect. In this context “liposomal” means that the active ingredient is encapsulated in vesicles called liposomes, which should enable a slower release over a longer period of time. In our study we included 25 healthy volunteers. The study participants were randomly assigned to receive two nerve blocks with bupivacaine for pain control, one in the conventional and one in the liposomal form.

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NEJM: Despite Removal of DEA Waiver Requirement, Buprenorphine Still Widely Underprescribed for 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: Buprenorphine is one of 3 FDA-approved medications to treat opioid addiction. It is the only one of the 3 that can be prescribed during office visits. Although buprenorphine is highly effective in treating opioid addiction, it is widely underused. Addressing this underuse is a key step towards slowing the epidemic of U.S. opioid overdose deaths.

In 2000, the federal government allowed clinicians to prescribe buprenorphine if they obtained a waiver from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Clinicians have cited the waiver requirement as a key barrier to buprenorphine prescribing. In part because of this, the government eliminated this requirement on January 12, 2023.

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Acid Suppressing Drugs Associated with Increased Risk of Migraine

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Margaret Slavin, PhD, RDN
Associate Professor
Department of Nutrition and Food Science
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

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

Response: Headache is a common side effect for a lot of drugs, but there have been a few studies recently in the U.K., Taiwan, and the U.S. suggesting that proton pump inhibitors (the most common acid suppressing drugs) might be associated more specifically with migraine. We used a different data source from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to further explore this topic, and to ask about other classes of acid suppressing drugs

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Annals of IM: Both Resistance Training and Neuromuscular Exercise Improved Function and Pain in Hip Osteoarthritis

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Troels Kjeldsen
PhD Student, MSc
Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Aarhus University Hospital
Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, 8200 Aarhus N, Indgang J, J501 
Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University
The Research Unit PROgrez,
Department of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy
Næstved-Slagelse-Ringsted Hospitals

Troels-Kjeldsen

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

Response: Hip osteoarthritis (OA) is a very common degenerative joint disease that results in hip pain and impaired physical function among other consequences for the individual.

Systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of exercise and hip OA have established that exercise is an effective conservative treatment option for reducing pain and improving physical function. In most clinical guidelines, exercise is the recommended first line treatment in combination with patient education and a weight loss intervention if necessary.

However, we know very little about which types of exercise are most effective and there is currently not an evidence basis on which doctors and physiotherapists can make recommendations of one type of exercise over another type.

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Empathetic Care By Physicians Provides Better Pain Relief Than Most Other Modalities

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
John C. Licciardone, DO, MS, MBA, FACPM
Regents Professor and Richards-Cohen Distinguished Chair in Clinical Research
Department of Family Medicine, MET-568
University of North Texas Health Science Center
Fort Worth, TX 76107

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

Response: The Pain Registry for Epidemiological, Clinical, and Interventional Studies and Innovation focuses on the patient-physician relationship and its association with chronic pain treatment and outcomes.

Previous studies involving physician empathy often have been limited to pain clinics and involved short-term follow-up. Our study aimed to study the impact of physician empathy on outcomes among patients with chronic low back pain in community settings throughout the United States over 12 months of follow-up.

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Adolescents View Overwhelming Lack of Empathy for Popular TV Characters Experiencing Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Melanie Noel, PhD, RPsych
Professor of Clinical Psychology
University of Calgary
Full Member of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute and
Hotchkiss Brain Institute
Director, Alberta Children’s Pain Research Lab
at the Vi Riddell Pain & Rehabilitation Centre
Alberta Children’s Hospital in Canada.

PainRelief.com: What are the main findings of the study?

Response: We examined 10 movies and the first seasons of 6 TV Netflix shows based on popularity among adolescents.  

Across the 616 scenes showing painful events, the majority showed violence and injuries and not the kinds of pain kids experience in real life (e.g., medical procedures, chronic pain. Characters from marginalized (gender diverse, girls) and minoritized groups (individuals with racialized identities) were underrepresented.

Overall, there was an overwhelming LACK of empathy shown to characters observing others in pain. The media perpetuated gender and racialized stereotypes.

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