Fibromyalgia: Imaging Studies Find Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Reduces Pain Catastrophizing

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Jeungchan Lee, Ph.D.,
Instructor
MGH/HST Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical ImagingSpaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Charlestown, MA 024129

Jeungchan Lee, Ph.D.,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
MGH/HST Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical ImagingSpaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Charlestown, MA 024129

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

Response: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has shown promise in alleviating fibromyalgia (FM) symptoms by targeting pain-related catastrophizing, which comprises negative cognitive and emotional processes amplifying pain perception.

However, the neurological mechanisms underlying CBT’s impact on pain catastrophizing in FM patients have remained unclear.

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Smaller Portions of Pain Relievers After ER Visits May Be Sufficient for Pain Relief

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Raoul Daoust, MD, CSPQ, MSc
Clinical Professor and researcher
Departments of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine
Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal

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

Response: Usually patients are prescribed too large a quantity of opioids and unused opioids are available for misuse. The tendency in the USA is to not prescribe opioids at all, leaving some patient in agonizing pain. I wanted to provide a tailored approach to prescribing opioids so patients have enough to manage their pain but almost no unused opioids available for misuse.

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Unequal Access to Chiropractic Pain Relief Care for Back Pain in Patients with Opioid Use Disorder

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Patience Moyo, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice
Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research
Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice
Brown University School of Public Health

Patience Moyo, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice
Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research
Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice
Brown University School of Public Health

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

Response: Clinical practice guidelines recommend nonpharmacologic treatments as first-line therapies for managing chronic pain. However, little is known about the use of guideline-recommended pain therapies and whether use varies in demographic subgroups. Individuals with co-occurring chronic pain and opioid use disorder deserve particular consideration because of their increased risk of harm from opioids and other pharmacologic therapies combined with their susceptibility to social and structural barriers to accessing health care.

We sought to understand whether the well-established racial and ethnic inequities in pain management extend to individuals with opioid use disorder and to nonpharmacologic pain treatments, specifically physical therapy and chiropractic care.

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Hypertension Drug May Decrease Both Inflammation and Need for Knee Replacement

PainRelief.com Interview with:

Iskandar Tamimi MD, PhD
Hospital Regional Universitario de Málaga
Faculty of Medicine, University of Málaga
Hospital HM
Málaga, Spain

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

Response: Knee osteoarthritis is a painful and limitting condition that affects a significant percentage of the world’s population. The treatment of end stage knee osteoarthritis is a undergoing a total knee replacement. This procedure is considered a major surgery and it’s associated with a significant number of complications, such as infections, deep vein thrombosis, residual knee pain, etc,,

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Gabapentin in Overdose Patients Not Necessarily the Cause of the Overdose

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Matthew S. Ellis, PhD, MPE
Department of Psychiatry
School of Medicine
Washington University in St. Louis

Kevin Xu MD, MPH
Instructor in Psychiatry
Co-Director, PGY2 Substance Use Disorders Rotation
Department of Psychiatry
School of Medicine
Washington University in St. Louis

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

Response: Gabapentin is one of the most commonly prescribed psychotropic medications, as it is used (primarily off-label) to treat a myriad of conditions, ranging from anxiety disorders and insomnia to chronic pain, seizure disorders, and substance use disorders.
This is even more true for individuals receiving treatment for opioid use disorder, who often have multiple physical and mental co-morbid conditions.

Unfortunately, it  has increasingly been found in people who overdose, causing physicians and policymakers to consider restricting access to gabapentin and tapering/deprescribing it in stable patients taking it in the long-term.

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Venous Embolism Risk Increased With Hormonal Contraceptions, Especially with NSAIDs for Pain Relief

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Amani Meaidi, Postdoc, MD, Ph.D.
Danish Cancer Society
Danish Cancer Society Research Center
Copenhagen

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

Response: Use of birth control formulations containing estrogen (combined hormonal contraception) is an acknowledged risk factor for venous thromboembolism.

NSAID use has also been shown to increase risk of thrombosis

NSAID use is likely to be the most common co-medication to hormonal contraception use – still, no study has looked at the effect of concomitant use of hormonal contraception and NSAID on venous thromboembolic risk.

Thus, we decided to study the thrombosis safety of using hormonal contraception and NSAIDs simultaneously. 

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Nerve Pathway Identified That May Mitigate Pain from Endometriosis

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Robert N. Taylor, MD PhD
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Investigator, Clinical and Translational Research Center
Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
University at Buffalo

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

Response: Our laboratory has been interested in the hormonal modulation of endometriosis-associated pain for decades. This disease and its manifestations are multifactorial. In the current study we focused on the role of nerve growth factors and their receptors, interactive proteins that direct the growth of new nerves and allow their circuits to communicate to regions of the brain that sense pain.

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Cannabis Smoke Exposure is Not Risk Free

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Beth Cohen, MD MAS
Professor of Medicine, UCSF
Co-Director, PRIME Internal Medicine Residency Program
Staff Physician, San Francisco VA Medical Center

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

Response: Though rates of tobacco use are declining, rates of cannabis use are increasing as it becomes more widely legal and available. Though there is not as much research on the long-term health effects of cannabis, cannabis and tobacco smoke contain many of the same carcinogens and toxins and both have particulate matter than is harmful when inhaled.

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Medical Music Therapy: Another Tool in Pain Relief Treatment

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Seneca Block, Ph.D(c), MT-BC  
The Lauren Rich Fine Endowed Director of Expressive Therapies
Adjunct Instructor, School of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry, CWRU
Director AMTA National Roster Internship
Board Certified Music Therapist
University Hospitals Connor Whole Health
Cleveland Medical Center
Cleveland Ohio 44106

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What types of music do you utilize?

Response: We summarized a process improvement initiative aimed to increase a large scale medical music therapy group’s (13.3FTE) pre and post metrics collection of patient reported outcomes including stress, pain, anxiety and coping. Music Therapy sessions featured multiple interventions utilizing patient preferred music facilitated live by board certified music therapists. As a quality improvement initiative, a series of team training sessions were implemented to provide education on data capturing techniques of patient reported outcomes.

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Study Finds TENS Device, Usually Used for Pain Relief, May be Useful in Sleep Apnea

PainRelief.com Interview with:
Joerg Steier PhD
Professor of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine
Guy’s & St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust
King’s College London

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? Where is the TENS unit applied?

Response: Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea hold their breath at night, which fragments their sleep and leads to daytime symptoms like excessive daytime sleepiness. Keeping the tone of the neuromuscular structures, particularly the hypoglossal nerve and the genioglossus muscle, elevated at night using electrical current has become an established treatment over the last decade.

Hypoglossal nerve stimulation, however, is using an implantable device, is costly, and requires surgical intervention. The novelty in the current study is that using a transcutaneous electrical neurostimulator (TENS) that is placed underneath the chin in the submental area can achieve significant improvements sleep apnoea severity and associated symptoms as well.

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