Kate Nicholson was working as a civil rights attorney for the Justice Department when a surgical error left her unable to sit or stand, largely bedridden, and in severe pain for almost 20 years. Using opioids as an appropriate pain management tool, she continued to function as a high-level federal prosecutor. In this talk, Kate pivots from her inspiring and excruciating story to examine the under-treatment of pain, showing how our approach to opioid abuse by 2.5 million Americans is hurting 50 million people in severe or persistent pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4vHSLeTe-s
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Opioid crisis: Could the 'pain-o-meter' be a solution? - USA Today
Every year, millions of Americans will go to their doctors complaining of pain, and their doctors will ask them to rate their degree of discomfort on a zero-to-10 scale, or using a range of smiley-face symbols.
The doctor will have to take their word for it. And then, all too often, the doctor will prescribe a powerful and addictive opioid painkiller.
It's a longstanding — if imprecise and subjective — way of measuring and treating pain. And it's at least partly responsible for starting an opioid addiction crisis that killed 64,000 people last year.
"One of the things we heard from many physicians is that the pain-specific indicator contributed to this crisis," said White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, President Trump's top adviser on the opioid crisis.
"We don't think health care by emoji is good idea," she said.
So the Trump administration, which has declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, is backing efforts to find better ways of measuring and treating pain in the hope of developing precise treatments that would be more effective than opioids — and without the often catastrophic side effects.
Next month, the National Institutes of Health will open proposals for $4 million in small business grants to develop a device or technology to objectively measure pain. That could take the form of a blood test, a device to measure pupil dilation, or software to interpret facial expressions.
NIH Director Francis Collins calls it the "pain-o-meter."
It's not entirely clear what the pain-o-meter would look like, or exactly how it would work. It hasn't been invented — yet.
But the pain-o-meter isn't meant to be the end game. It's actually the first step in understanding the measurable indicators — or "biomarkers" — that can indicate pain. And that, in turn, could pinpoint causes and treatments, bringing precision medicine to pain management.
"There is this issue about whether we'll ever really get where we want to go in terms of developing effective pain management if we just consider pain to be one thing," Collins told the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health last month. "Because we know that it's not."
The current tools of measuring pain don't take into account individual pain thresholds, which can be influenced by genetics, past experiences and other conditions. They often don't distinguish different causes of pain, or different pain sensations.
More …
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/21/pain-o-meter-solution-opioid-crisis/840027001/
The doctor will have to take their word for it. And then, all too often, the doctor will prescribe a powerful and addictive opioid painkiller.
It's a longstanding — if imprecise and subjective — way of measuring and treating pain. And it's at least partly responsible for starting an opioid addiction crisis that killed 64,000 people last year.
"One of the things we heard from many physicians is that the pain-specific indicator contributed to this crisis," said White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, President Trump's top adviser on the opioid crisis.
"We don't think health care by emoji is good idea," she said.
So the Trump administration, which has declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, is backing efforts to find better ways of measuring and treating pain in the hope of developing precise treatments that would be more effective than opioids — and without the often catastrophic side effects.
Next month, the National Institutes of Health will open proposals for $4 million in small business grants to develop a device or technology to objectively measure pain. That could take the form of a blood test, a device to measure pupil dilation, or software to interpret facial expressions.
NIH Director Francis Collins calls it the "pain-o-meter."
It's not entirely clear what the pain-o-meter would look like, or exactly how it would work. It hasn't been invented — yet.
But the pain-o-meter isn't meant to be the end game. It's actually the first step in understanding the measurable indicators — or "biomarkers" — that can indicate pain. And that, in turn, could pinpoint causes and treatments, bringing precision medicine to pain management.
"There is this issue about whether we'll ever really get where we want to go in terms of developing effective pain management if we just consider pain to be one thing," Collins told the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health last month. "Because we know that it's not."
The current tools of measuring pain don't take into account individual pain thresholds, which can be influenced by genetics, past experiences and other conditions. They often don't distinguish different causes of pain, or different pain sensations.
More …
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/21/pain-o-meter-solution-opioid-crisis/840027001/
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
The Power of the Placebo - Slate
Every so often, a new study comes along that challenges conventional wisdom in medicine or science. When the conditions are right, these studies can generate a lot of attention in both the popular press and the medical community. In early November, one of these such studies, called the ORBITA study, was published in the Lancet by a group of cardiologists.
The authors had set out to ask and answer a simple question: Does placement of a small wire mesh (called a stent) inside the artery that feeds blood to the heart (the coronary artery) relieve chest pain? One might ask what was novel about this question. The truth is that there was and is nothing novel about the question. The novelty was in the methods the authors used to answer the question: They conducted a prospective randomized controlled clinical trial, or RCT, the gold standard of research. The best RCTs compare the effect of the active intervention to a placebo and the best of the best keep both the subjects and the investigators blind to the intervention. The authors managed to do this for stents and chest pain, something that had never been done before, and in doing so, they had the best chance of preventing the placebo effect from skewing the results.
More ...
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2017/11/what_to_do_if_you_have_a_stent.html
The authors had set out to ask and answer a simple question: Does placement of a small wire mesh (called a stent) inside the artery that feeds blood to the heart (the coronary artery) relieve chest pain? One might ask what was novel about this question. The truth is that there was and is nothing novel about the question. The novelty was in the methods the authors used to answer the question: They conducted a prospective randomized controlled clinical trial, or RCT, the gold standard of research. The best RCTs compare the effect of the active intervention to a placebo and the best of the best keep both the subjects and the investigators blind to the intervention. The authors managed to do this for stents and chest pain, something that had never been done before, and in doing so, they had the best chance of preventing the placebo effect from skewing the results.
More ...
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2017/11/what_to_do_if_you_have_a_stent.html
Friday, November 17, 2017
New painkillers could thwart opioids’ fatal flaw | Science | AAAS
When people die from overdoses of opioids, whether prescription pain medications or street drugs, it is the suppression of breathing that almost always kills them. The drugs act on neuronal receptors to dull pain, but those in the brain stem also control breathing. When activated, they can signal respiration to slow, and then stop. The results are well-known: an epidemic of deaths—about 64,000 people in the United States alone last year.
Countering this lethal side effect without losing opioids' potent pain relief is a challenge that has enticed drug developers for years. Now, for the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Silver Spring, Maryland, is considering whether to approve an opioid that is as effective as morphine at relieving pain and poses less risk of depressing breathing.
Trevena, a firm based in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania, announced on 2 November that it has submitted oliceridine, an intravenous opioid meant for use in hospitalized patients, to FDA for marketing approval. The drug, which would be marketed under the name Olinvo, is the most advanced of what scientists predict will be a growing crop of pain-relieving "biased agonists"—so called because, in binding a key opioid receptor in the central nervous system, they nudge it into a conformation that promotes a signaling cascade that kills pain over one that suppresses breathing. And in a paper out this week in Cell, a veteran opioid researcher and her colleagues unveil new biased opioid agonists that could surpass oliceridine, though they haven't been tested in people yet.
More ...
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/new-painkillers-could-thwart-opioids-fatal-flaw
Countering this lethal side effect without losing opioids' potent pain relief is a challenge that has enticed drug developers for years. Now, for the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Silver Spring, Maryland, is considering whether to approve an opioid that is as effective as morphine at relieving pain and poses less risk of depressing breathing.
Trevena, a firm based in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania, announced on 2 November that it has submitted oliceridine, an intravenous opioid meant for use in hospitalized patients, to FDA for marketing approval. The drug, which would be marketed under the name Olinvo, is the most advanced of what scientists predict will be a growing crop of pain-relieving "biased agonists"—so called because, in binding a key opioid receptor in the central nervous system, they nudge it into a conformation that promotes a signaling cascade that kills pain over one that suppresses breathing. And in a paper out this week in Cell, a veteran opioid researcher and her colleagues unveil new biased opioid agonists that could surpass oliceridine, though they haven't been tested in people yet.
More ...
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/new-painkillers-could-thwart-opioids-fatal-flaw
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
Drugstore pain pills as effective as opioids in ER patients - AP
Emergency rooms are where many patients are first introduced to powerful opioid painkillers, but what if doctors offered over-the-counter pills instead? A new study tested that approach on patients with broken bones and sprains and found pain relievers sold as Tylenol and Motrin worked as well as opioids at reducing severe pain.
The results challenge common ER practice for treating short-term, severe pain and could prompt changes that would help prevent new patients from becoming addicted.
The study has limitations: It only looked at short-term pain relief in the emergency room and researchers didn't evaluate how patients managed their pain after leaving the hospital.
But given the scope of the U.S. opioid epidemic — more than 2 million Americans are addicted to opioid painkillers or heroin — experts say any dent in the problem could be meaningful.
Results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Long-term opioid use often begins with a prescription painkiller for short-term pain, and use of these drugs in the ER has risen in recent years. Previous studies have shown opioids were prescribed in nearly one-third of ER visits and about 1 out of 5 ER patients are sent home with opioid prescriptions.
"Preventing new patients from becoming addicted to opioids may have a greater effect on the opioid epidemic than providing sustained treatment to patients already addicted," Dr. Demetrios Kyriacou, an emergency medicine specialist at Northwestern University, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
The study involved 411 adults treated in two emergency rooms at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. Their injuries included leg and arm fractures or sprains. All were given acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol, plus either ibuprofen, the main ingredient in Motrin, or one of three opioids: oxycodone, hydrocodone or codeine. They were given standard doses and were not told which drug combo they received.
Patients rated their pain levels before taking the medicine and two hours later. On average, pain scores dropped from almost 9 on a 10-point scale to about 5, with negligible differences between the groups.
More ...
https://apnews.com/c8a5e43be775463eaad55b4d2ae35cdb/Pain-relievers-worked-as-well-as-opioids-in-ER-patients
The results challenge common ER practice for treating short-term, severe pain and could prompt changes that would help prevent new patients from becoming addicted.
The study has limitations: It only looked at short-term pain relief in the emergency room and researchers didn't evaluate how patients managed their pain after leaving the hospital.
But given the scope of the U.S. opioid epidemic — more than 2 million Americans are addicted to opioid painkillers or heroin — experts say any dent in the problem could be meaningful.
Results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Long-term opioid use often begins with a prescription painkiller for short-term pain, and use of these drugs in the ER has risen in recent years. Previous studies have shown opioids were prescribed in nearly one-third of ER visits and about 1 out of 5 ER patients are sent home with opioid prescriptions.
"Preventing new patients from becoming addicted to opioids may have a greater effect on the opioid epidemic than providing sustained treatment to patients already addicted," Dr. Demetrios Kyriacou, an emergency medicine specialist at Northwestern University, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
The study involved 411 adults treated in two emergency rooms at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. Their injuries included leg and arm fractures or sprains. All were given acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol, plus either ibuprofen, the main ingredient in Motrin, or one of three opioids: oxycodone, hydrocodone or codeine. They were given standard doses and were not told which drug combo they received.
Patients rated their pain levels before taking the medicine and two hours later. On average, pain scores dropped from almost 9 on a 10-point scale to about 5, with negligible differences between the groups.
More ...
https://apnews.com/c8a5e43be775463eaad55b4d2ae35cdb/Pain-relievers-worked-as-well-as-opioids-in-ER-patients
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