Opioid Safety and Service Members

New policies and training invoked by Navy Medicine, providing medical services to sailors, Marines, and family members, are designed to strike a balance between ensuring safe use of opioids and preserving access to them for the treatment of chronic pain. Patients in the care of Navy Medicine will...

The Business Aspects of Drug Testing

When Health Insurance May Not Be on Our Side

The cost of healthcare of course is a concern. The insurance companies are in the business of providing insurance and healthcare professionals and patients are seeking out quality care. There’s an inherent conflict there because unfortunately pain is a complex biopsychosocial problem. It really does...

Surgeon General: Make Naloxone Widely Available

Last week, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, issued an advisory advocating for greater distribution and availability of naloxone as an element of the national response to opioid use disorder. The Surgeon General recommends that individuals at risk for opioid overdose, as well as their family...

Lost in Translation: Making Sense of Clinical Treatment Guidelines

This presentation will highlight common procedures used for pain reduction, their evidence base, and a basic description of how each procedure is performed. We will primarily review epidural steroid injections, facet joint blocks and denervation, sacroiliac joint injections and denervation...

Does the Opioid Threat Go Beyond Opioids?

In 2017, the state of Kentucky became the first to classify gabapentin as a Schedule 5 substance, following the finding that the drug was involved in up to 33% of overdose fatalities during the prior year. This means that prescriptions for gabapentin will be reported to the state’s PDMP going...

Does Moderate Drinking Help with Chronic Pain?

Findings from a recent study suggest that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with less pain in patients with chronic pain and fibromyalgia, although fibromyalgia patients reported less benefit. Patients with chronic pain who were moderate drinkers also reported less anxiety, depression, and...

Overdose! Are Drug Users the Best First Responders?

Because they are likely to be at the scene of an overdose when it occurs, fellow drug users may be the most suitable targets for naloxone training, according to conclusions from a new study conducted at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In interviews with 450 drug users in the...

Are Better-Educated Boomers More Likely to Abuse Opioids?

A new study conducted by researchers from the University at Buffalo School of Nursing is one of the first to focus specifically on the risk factors for opioid misuse in older adults. This population is particularly sensitive to adverse effects from opioids, according to the researchers. Study author...

Clinical Treatment Guidelines and Patients in Pain

Although one of the goals of clinical guideline development is to aid the provider with information to help make important treatment decisions, what’s not completely divulged is that clinical treatment guidelines can’t make a good treatment decision per se for an individual patient. Guidelines that...