Pain Management

The real cause of America’s opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame

Meds
March 22, 2023

We’ve all heard about America’s so-called “opioid epidemic.” Nearly 100,000 people died in 2021 of causes that included overdose by one or more narcotic drugs and often alcohol. We also hear assertions from anti-opioid advocates that this epidemic was caused by doctors “over-prescribing” opioid pain relievers to their patients. These assertions are fundamentally wrong on fact. U.S. national health care policy and law redirections are needed to correct such distortions.

Doctors …

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Critical thinking in pain management [PODCAST]

Podcast
March 7, 2023
YouTube video

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In this episode, we welcome special guest Ronald A. Zent, a family physician, to discuss the ongoing opioid crisis. With a fourfold increase in opioid prescriptions and overdose deaths from 1999-2010, Ronald shares his insights on how …

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From suffering to healing: the role of trauma in chronic pain

Conditions
February 28, 2023

“Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood and untreated cause of human suffering.”
– Peter Levine, PhD, Developer of Somatic Experiencing Therapy

One frequent cause of treatment-resistant chronic pain is unresolved trauma, yet few health care providers and patients are aware of the connection, and, as a result, it is rarely addressed. This leads to considerable unnecessary suffering and misguided attempts at pain treatment that often do more harm …

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The power of listening: a poem from a chronic pain patient to their doctor

Physician
February 25, 2023

Per the CDC, 11 to 40 percent of Americans struggle with chronic pain. All physicians must treat patients with chronic pain, whether they are spine surgeons or primary care physicians. It is a disease we can not escape.

 We do not have a one-time pill to fix chronic pain.

Unlike other diseases, we do not necessarily have a cure for chronic pain. In medical school and residency, we are provided with …

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Opioid addiction: Understanding the risk factors with a predictive model [PODCAST]

Podcast
February 11, 2023
YouTube video

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In this episode, we’re discussing the opioid epidemic and its impact on our society. Our guest is Gary Call, a family physician, who shares the emotional and financial cost on individuals and families caused by opioid addiction …

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Pain management beyond prescription pills [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 31, 2023
YouTube video

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In this episode, we welcome Cindy Perlin, a licensed clinical social worker and chronic pain survivor, to discuss the ongoing issue of prescription painkiller abuse and the dangers of relying on medication to treat pain. Research shows …

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How were we duped and what can we do about the opioid overdose crisis?

Meds
January 13, 2023

Who among us as physicians and prescribers, not to mention the millions of families who have been affected and suffered deep personal loss due to the current crisis and record overdose deaths, regardless of whether the opioid was legally written or illicit.

Let’s take a step back in time and review. As physicians, how have we been duped? Now the CDC has come up with recent new guidelines on opioid prescribing …

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Nutrition’s impact on pain and obesity [PODCAST]

Podcast
December 15, 2022
YouTube video

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“Both pain and obesity can have a multitude of causes. Therefore, reducing pain and body weight should be approached in a multifactorial way; nutritionally, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Failure to do so may result in short-term success …

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Think twice before prescribing opioids as a first-line treatment for pain

Meds
November 22, 2022

Everyone knows the terrible toll the opioid epidemic takes on our society. It doesn’t matter where you live and how wealthy or educated you are, no one is immune. I watched as a colleague tried to help a child struggling with addiction, spending countless hours of worry and thousands of dollars, only to have the child succumb to an accidental opioid overdose. The emotional and financial cost on individuals and …

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It’s time for a reckoning in pain medicine

Conditions
November 17, 2022

More than a million Americans have died since the late 1990s from drug overdoses, with the vast majority dying from an opioid overdose. This trend started with the heavy marketing of opioids to physicians as nonaddictive and effective. The number of deaths from overdose has escalated significantly in the past few years. Although many of the recent opioid-related deaths are from fentanyl, substance abuse treatment providers report that …

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Back to reality when it comes to pain treatment

Conditions
October 3, 2022

Back in the 1980s, I had a longtime patient, age about 30, that came to my office for severe back pain. She previously had some mild back pain and had no orthopedic evaluation. Otherwise, she was in good health without any other health issues.

She could barely walk upright, so I sent her to the orthopedic physician I normally referred my patients to the same day. He sent her back to …

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We need to get real about chronic pain solutions

Conditions
September 9, 2022

For all the time and attention that’s placed on whether opioids should be prescribed or even removed from the market, we must put equal – if not greater – emphasis on enhancing access to non-opioid pain treatments. Not prescribing opioids doesn’t solve or eliminate the root issue and reason many people are on painkillers to begin with—chronic pain.

Fifty million Americans live in chronic, debilitating pain. For many, their pain …

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It’s time to address pain despite the opioid crisis

Conditions
August 31, 2022

Have you ever felt as if your doctor wasn’t really listening to you or was just rushing through your appointment? Have you ever felt as if your doctor didn’t understand the pain you were in or didn’t take it seriously?

Most health care providers are evaluated based on the experience their patients had, and their payment is often based on those patient experience scores. A major component of patient …

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How every doctor should address a patient’s pain

Conditions
August 15, 2022

From medical school to residency, I’ve worked with colleagues who don’t prescribe pain medications for their patients who truly need them. Or they are just very hesitant about doing so. Some simply don’t believe in them. Others fear the legal implications like being named to a med mal or wrongful death lawsuit. And several avoid pain meds, specifically opioids, like the plague because of possible addiction risk even when their …

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We must disrupt harm

Meds
August 6, 2022

In the mid-1980s, with the AIDS epidemic on the horizon, austere conservative Margaret Thatcher sanctioned the first needle exchanges in the U.K. to prevent the budgetary burden that HIV might otherwise have become on the National Health Service. Nearly forty years later, New York City opened its first supervised injection sites in November of 2021, where intravenous drug users inject their substances of choice under the watchful eye …

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Treating pain without medication [PODCAST]

Podcast
July 3, 2022
YouTube video

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“In my medical training, we were taught five ways to treat pain: lifestyle modifications, physical therapy, medications, injections, and surgery. Lifestyle modifications are positive changes in diet, exercise, sleep, and stress levels. This is the first-line treatment for painful inflammation. Yet we tend …

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Allow patients to continue their opioid of choice while starting microdoses of buprenorphine

Meds
June 16, 2022

Twenty-six hours into the shakes, sweats, crawling anxiety, and gripping nausea of opioid withdrawal, Faye caves in and takes a couple of fentanyl tabs. She knows that she must tough out a couple of days without fentanyl to start Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) through a medication-assisted treatment program, but the sickness gets the better of her. Those couple of tablets reset the clock on her withdrawal.

Starting buprenorphine – an evidence-based …

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CME Spotlights