Pain management

471 articles · Since 2014

Articles, page 16

How employers and plan sponsors can save the U.S. workforce from opioids

July 14, 2018Jul 14, 2018

Opioid use has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, becoming one of America’s highest-priority public health issues. With opioid abuse spiraling out of control, lawmakers, regulators, and health professionals are scrambling to better understand key drivers of this issue and develop an effective action plan. Although the devastating impact of opioids on families and communities is well known, less focus has been given to how it affects the workplace …

Conditions and diseases

Education as an intervention for the chronic pain epidemic

American Society of Anesthesiologists & Talal Khan, MD

July 1, 2018Jul 1, 20185

A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. Chronic pain is a silent epidemic Chronic pain is a significant public health burden, but one that is not talked about enough. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine…

A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

Chronic pain is a silent epidemic

Chronic pain is a significant public health burden, but one that is not talked about enough. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine estimated that approximately 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. But chronic pain is not just a national problem. The 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Burden of Disease …

Conditions and diseases

Restricting opioid prescribing: Some error has to be tolerated

Michael Kirsch, MD

June 27, 2018Jun 27, 20189

I have written previously about the raging opioid epidemic in Ohio. Attacking and reversing this tidal wave will require many weapons, resources and time. Opioid addiction is a crafty and elusive adversary that will be difficult to vanquish. Our battle…

Here in Ohio and elsewhere, physicians must abide by new

…

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Drugs and prescribing

A DEA agent explains how to fight the opioid crisis and mitigate DEA risk

Dennis Wichern

June 4, 2018Jun 4, 20185

42,000. That’s the number of CDC reported overdose deaths in 2016 due to opioids. Ten percent. That’s the percentage of the estimated 2.1 million opioid substance abusers receiving treatment help and even fewer afforded medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for their struggles.…

42,000. That’s the number of CDC reported overdose deaths in 2016 due to opioids.

Ten percent. That’s the percentage of the estimated 2.1 million opioid substance abusers receiving treatment help and even fewer afforded medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for their struggles.

Three percent or around 40,000. That’s the number of physicians out of a total of 1.3 million across the U.S. qualified by the Substance …

Conditions and diseases

The painfully fine line of pain management

Michelle Dang, MD

June 2, 2018Jun 2, 201846

I've been practicing as an interventional pain management physician for over six years. It was a long road to get here -- four years of medical school, four years of residency in anesthesiology and one year of fellowship (in addition…

I’ve been practicing as an interventional pain management physician for over six years. It was a long road to get here — four years of medical school, four years of residency in anesthesiology and one year of fellowship (in addition to the four years of undergraduate education). So people say, “You must really love what you do.” Sure, during residency there was light at the end of the grueling tunnel …

Physician voices

A physician’s personal crisis with pain

Heather Finlay-Morreale, MD

May 24, 2018May 24, 20182

Six months ago, I had severe right flank pain. In the ER, I had an ultrasound showing a possible kidney stone. I deferred a CT scan and went home with medication. I fit the textbook picture: I had abnormal imaging, and I was given a treatment and discharged. I was advised to return if the pain worsened or failed to resolve. I briefly improved, but then the pain returned much …

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A physician’s personal crisis with pain

Conditions and diseases

6 ways to address the opioid epidemic

Nabila El-Bassel, PhD

May 18, 2018May 18, 201833

The devastating opioid epidemic is one of the largest public health problems facing the U.S. Over 2.5 million people in the U.S. suffer from opioid use disorder. Four in five new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers. A 2015…

The devastating opioid epidemic is one of the largest public health problems facing the U.S. Over 2.5 million people in the U.S. suffer from opioid use disorder.

Four in five new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers. A 2015 analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found people who are addicted to painkillers are 40 times more likely to be …

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6 ways to address the opioid epidemic

Physician voices

Addressing the health care system flaws that feed the opioid crisis

Anne Zink, MD

May 8, 2018May 8, 201821

I’m an ED physician, so I’m used to patients screaming at me — sometimes with earsplitting demands for heavy-duty painkillers, morphine drips and similar remedies that will numb or “fix” them. I can deal with this. What I can’t deal with is a health system that incentivizes physicians like me to medicate adult patients, especially those at high risk for substance abuse, with little thought given to their long-term wellbeing.

As …

Physician voices

Why physicians should respect the pain patients report

Karen S. Sibert, MD

May 3, 2018May 3, 20184

We’re all human beings, but we’re not all alike. Each person experiences pain differently, from an emotional perspective as well as a physical one, and responds to pain differently. That means that physicians like myself need to evaluate patients on…

We’re all human beings, but we’re not all alike.

Each person experiences pain differently, from an emotional perspective as well as a physical one, and responds to pain differently. That means that physicians like myself need to evaluate patients on an individual basis and find the best way to treat their pain.

Today, however, doctors are under pressure to limit costs and prescribe treatments based on standardized guidelines. A major gap looms …

Drugs and prescribing

The opioid crisis: Doctors cannot lose hope

Linda Girgis, MD

May 2, 2018May 2, 20184

While our elected officials in Washington spin political rhetoric and quote scary statistics around the opioid epidemic, New Jersey was one of the first states to take actual action. In February of this year, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal declared its plan of combat: a 24-hour response team, improvements to the prescription monitoring program, and over a million dollars in federal grants. In fact, the Office of …

Conditions and diseases

Primary care physicians are on the front line of the opioid epidemic. Help them.

Arjun Gokhale, MD & John Huston, MD

May 1, 2018May 1, 20188

When it comes to the opioid epidemic, physicians are some of the best drug dealers around with almost unrestricted access to the purest substances. As the opioid epidemic spirals out of control, physicians continue to be able to provide their patients with a variety of options, including oxycodone, morphine and fentanyl. Many people would be surprised to know that physicians don’t need any additional training to prescribe opiates to their …

Conditions and diseases

Breaking the silence: 3 stories of opioid abuse

Ariel Hurley

April 19, 2018Apr 19, 20185

When I was 12, my father got into a bicycle accident resulting in traumatic brain injury. Although I was unaware of it at the time, this day became the first day of the rest of my life. Despite having never…

When I was 12, my father got into a bicycle accident resulting in traumatic brain injury. Although I was unaware of it at the time, this day became the first day of the rest of my life.

Despite having never seen either of my parents so much as have a sip of wine with dinner, I watched my father spiral into a crippling alcohol addiction that wreaked havoc on our lives.

As …

Drugs and prescribing

This doctor stopped prescribing opioids. Other physicians should do the same.

Thomas D. Guastavino, MD

April 14, 2018Apr 14, 2018104

Have you ever had a prescription altered? I have, several times — all opioids. Despite making copies of every prescription to prove what I actually wrote for, dealing with everything from patients who threatened to sue me for false accusations to time spent with the DEA was a real pain. The good news is that during the pre “pain as fifth vital sign” era at least — since my prescribing …

Drugs and prescribing

Cutting the red tape with buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder

Christina Kinnevey, MD

April 10, 2018Apr 10, 20185

Tuesday morning. Sarah wakes up at 4 a.m., like every other morning, to go to clinic to get a medicine she cannot function without. But it’s not as easy as that. She has to take her three small children with her because she is a single parent and has no one else to stay at home with them. She does this six days a week. This is her life. This is the reality of …

Physician voices

To those who think doctors make money on opioids

Ryan Steele, DO

April 1, 2018Apr 1, 20183

A casual reader scanning the headlines would rightly infer a direct cause-and-effect relationship between pharmaceutical company payments and the number of opioid prescriptions written based on this headline displayed prominently on the CNN homepage. What follows is nothing short of a character assassination of the medical profession, portrayed as complicit drug pushers in bed with the pharmaceutical industry. Rather than a reasoned look at the history of causes of the …

Physician voices

Opioids: The pendulum has swung too far in the wrong direction

Lisa Kehrberg, MD

March 31, 2018Mar 31, 201827

I’m a 43-year-old physician who retired due to illness at the age of 39. I have a rare genetic disease called acute intermittent porphyria (AIP). It’s an extremely painful and disabling illness. Due to an enzyme deficiency in the heme biosynthesis pathway in the liver, porphyrin precursors accumulate and are neurotoxic causing visceral neuropathy. The symptoms of the disease are neurological with the most notable being abdominal pain. It is …

Physician voices

I’m a doctor but I didn’t mean to be a drug pusher

Kevin Haggerty, MD

March 25, 2018Mar 25, 20182

I never wanted to be a drug pusher. A career in medicine was the opposite — healing in place of harming. However, I knew something was wrong when a detective asked to speak to me about one of my patients. My patient, addicted to Vicodin, had committed several acts of fraud and theft in desperate attempt to satisfy her needs. Her arrest was the final step in a long, slow …

Physician speakers are ready to highlight your conference: Spring 2018 update

Kevin Pho, MD

March 22, 2018Mar 22, 2018

It's been a great start for my new speakers bureau, Physician Speaking by KevinMD. We are a group of practicing physicians who can tell a story, command the stage, and inspire your audience. This Spring 2018, we're highlighting the following…

It’s been a great start for my new speakers bureau, Physician Speaking by KevinMD. We are a group of practicing physicians who can tell a story, command the stage, and inspire your audience.

This Spring 2018, we’re highlighting the following events:

…

Conditions and diseases

The pain scale shares the blame for the opioid crisis in America

Vijay Rajput, MD

March 19, 2018Mar 19, 20188

If you have ever had surgery or told your doctor about physical pain, no doubt you have heard the question: “How would you rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10, with zero being no pain and 10…

If you have ever had surgery or told your doctor about physical pain, no doubt you have heard the question: “How would you rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10, with zero being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you can imagine?” That sounds like a reasonable question, but everyone has a different pain tolerance. In extreme cases, there are individuals who are born with …

Conditions and diseases

The opioid epidemic: the origin

Councill Rudolph, MD

March 13, 2018Mar 13, 20186

The patient The patient is a forty-two-year-old male who works in the auto manufacturing arena. He takes one step to his left, he turns and lifts a seventy-five-pound piece of metal from a moving conveyor belt. He turns back and…

The patient

The patient is a forty-two-year-old male who works in the auto manufacturing arena. He takes one step to his left, he turns and lifts a seventy-five-pound piece of metal from a moving conveyor belt. He turns back and takes one step to his right to put the metal on his table. He tightens three screws, lifts the metal off the table to take one step to his right, turning, …

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The opioid epidemic: the origin

Pain management

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