Tag Archives: #painrelief

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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Mucosal Breaks from Periodontal Disease Likely Promotes Rheumatoid Arthritis

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Dana Orange MD
Associate Professor of Clinical Investigation
The Rockefeller Institute and
William H. Robinson, MD PhD
James W. Raitt, M.D., Professor Medicine
Immunology & Rheumatology
Stanford Health Care

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

Response: Periodontitis is more common in patients with rheumatoid arthritis than those without.  

Of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, those with current periodontitis are less likely to receive benefit from treatment with biologic agents than those without periodontitis.

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Kidney Stones: Mayo Clinic Study Evaluates CBD Oil for Post-Procedure Kidney Stone Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Karen L. Stern M.D.
Associate Professor of Urology
Mayo Clinic Arizona
Phoenix, AZ 85054

Dr. Stern

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

Response: Kidney stones are not rare and often require surgical intervention. One of the most popular and effective surgical interventions is ureteroscopy with laser lithotripsy. Essentially, the Urologist goes up to the kidney with a small scope and lasers the stone.

It is common after this procedure to leave a temporary stent – a small flexible tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder – which allows for urine to drain unobstructed during the healing process.

Unfortunately, that stent is associated with significant morbidity including urinary symptoms and pain.

There have been many studies looking at ways to alleviate this pain and discomfort, but this is the first to assess CBD in that capacity. We tested a low-dose FDA-approved CBD oil. We found it to be safe and well tolerated but we did not find any significant difference in postoperative pain.

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Promising Pain Relief with Injectable Allograft for Chronic Low Back Pain

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Dr. Douglas Beall, MD
Chief of Radiology Services
Clinical Radiology of Oklahoma
Oklahoma City, OK

Dr. Beall

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

Response: Discogenic low back pain is typically caused by damaged discs in the spine. Viable disc allograft supplementation is a minimally invasive treatment that injects specialized cells and fluid into a damaged disc. The cells of the injected fluid encourage the cells in the damaged disc to regenerate with healthy tissue.

As for the study itself, 50 patients at nine sites participated in an extension of the randomized control Viable Allograft Supplemented Disc Regeneration in the Treatment of Patients With Low Back Pain (VAST) Trial. Of these, 46 received allograft treatment and four received saline. The treatment group was similar to the patient population at the start of the VAST trial in age, sex, race, ethnicity, body mass index and smoking status. Pain levels were evaluated using the VAS Analog Scale, and functionality was measured using the Oswestery Disability Index (ODI).

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Knee OsteoArthritis: Study Finds Radiofrequency Nerve Ablation Provides Pain Relief

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PainRelief.com Interview with:
Kaitlin Carrato, M.D., Chief Resident in Interventional Radiology
MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, and
John B. Smirniotopoulos, M.D., Interventional Radiologist
MedStar Georgetown University Hospital

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What is the main indication for the RFA procedure?

Response: Roughly one in four U.S. adults have knee pain due to arthritis that interferes with their everyday lives and activities. A treatment called genicular nerve radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a safe and effective option for reducing pain from osteoarthritis of the knee, one of the most common joints affected by osteoarthritis. Interventional radiologists perform genicular nerve RFA using image guidance to place probe needles next to nerves around the knee that send pain signals to the brain. The primary indication for this procedure is chronic pain that has not been sufficiently managed by other treatments, prescription medications, physical therapy, or for patients with persistent pain even after knee replacement.

This study examined patient demographics, prior surgical history, degree of osteoarthritis and other clinical characteristics that may affect how well RFA reduces knee pain. We measured post-procedure pain in 36 patients using the visual analog scale (VAS) and the Western Ontario McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis (WOMAC) pain scale. We then evaluated whether pain reduction levels were influenced by demographics and clinical characteristics.

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