Donate to RSDSA – a single gift can help so many & support better treatments

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I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. – Mother Teresa Donations are like a stone in the water, a single gift can ripple through the community to help many people. Every donation to us is terrific and we want you to know that each is important and meaningful. . The holiday season is a special time of the year for being part of a community, sharing, receiving and giving. We ask you to make a gift to our End of the Year appeal to ease the lives of people with CRPS. . We can’t make the pain go away, but with a donation from you we can work together to give those with CRPS support, education, and hope while driving research to develop better treatments and a cure. . Consider the impact your donation will make in 2020 on the lives of those with CRPS. We can work together and share the goal of bringing light and hope to people living with CRPS. . Thank You!

The RSDSA Staff – Pam Kientzler, Jim Broatch, Jennifer Pincus & Tracy Greer

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Courageous Kids Camp instills inspiration and empowerment in children! Registration for the 2020 camp and retreat sessions is now open. Apply today.

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RSDSA 99 Cherry St. • P.O. Box 502 • Milford, CT 06460 Tel: 203.877.3790 • Toll Free: 877.662.7737

Our Mission Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association (RSDSA) mission is to provide support, education, and hope to all affected by the pain and disability of CRPS/RSD, while we drive research to develop better treatments and a cure.

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.
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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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For My Home Page, click here:  

Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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PLEASE GIVE TO RSDSA – donor will match donations up to $5,000!

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Neuropathic Pain is

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highly difficult to treat 

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and few medications are available

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Please donate to RSDSA to support research for neuropathic pain & help those disabled by pain.

 

 

From RSDSA:

 

It’s almost go time!   We are only days away from #GivingTuesday 2019! This year, we have a donor who will match our donations up to $5,000! It’s true that it takes a village like our community to work together and raise awareness, educate, and advocate for better treatments.   If you haven’t done so already, please make a donation to our #GivingTuesday fundraising page and tell your friends and family about our campaign. Spreading the word gets our voices heard and the donations rolling in! We’re excited to be a part of this worldwide event and providing a chance to give back to our community.   Please join our campaign between now  and Tuesday, December 3, 2019   RSDSA’s 2019 Accomplishments   Co-sponsorship of Courageous Kids Camp for children with CRPS in Kentucky for the 4th year Sponsorship of Young Adults Weekends for young adults with CRPS who are transitioning into the workforce, independent living, and other new situations Sponsorship of an accredited free online course on pediatric CRPS Sponsorship of two Treating the Whole Person conferences; in Houston and Denver And much more! . . Cheers, . . Your Team at RSDSA     Donate Now   Upcoming Events   Join Today  . .   .

 

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We are highlighting a different Warrior’s story on our blog each day!

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Catch up on the posts today!

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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Comments are welcome.

This site is not for email, not for medical questions, and not for appointments.

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For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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Please IGNORE THE ADS BELOW. They are not from me.

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Simply Calming

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First, an introduction or just skip below to web link, below, of the sweet Suzuki Roshi breathing practice of exhalation. It is so simple people with Alzheimer’s can do it. So instantly calming.

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It is best to practice while we are young and build a solid practice, make it part of being with your Self. The Divine Self. It is so simple and so sweet. It is who we are.

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A wonderful practice and highest teaching. We are all the divine essence, the serene soul. Enjoy how simple and calming…..relax and be in the moment of which the highest teachings speak, as far back as the Vedas and Upanishads, Buddha and all spiritual traditions have taught. 

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There is no god but God. There are no other gods. Not dreamy woo woo stuff. It just Is. Omnipresent. 

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“This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.” Vivekananda (6:371) “Complete self-surrender is the only way to spiritual illumination. Vivekananda (5:258)

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Acceptance. Enjoy who you already are. 

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Just be. You are That. We forget our true self. This is real. No kids play. 

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We all experience these moments. Being. Just being. Simple as breathing. 

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“ There is no question that breathing is taking place. Can you see that there is no breather to be found anywhere? The body is empty, the breath is empty and you are empty.” 

 

The Upanishads describe that stage as turiya “pure consciousness. Turiya is the background that underlies and transcends the three common states of consciousness.

Buddhists call this emptiness. Advaita calls it fullness. The Divine Essence. God. The self that merges into the Absolute beyond, time space and causation Beyond name and form there is nothing else but the Self, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. And this pure simple breathing out brings it into this very moment.

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from the dharma message of Zen priest and teacher White Lotus Judith Ragir.

click above name to go directly to the website for this  dharma teaching – it will be easier to read. 

 

Exhaling and dissolving.

Here are some quotes from Suzuki Roshi in “Not Always So” (chapter: Calmness of Mind) that emphasize working with the exhale while meditating:

“Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhalation. If you exhale smoothly, without even trying to exhale, you are entering into the complete perfect calmness of your mind. You do not exist anymore. 

Inhaling without effort you naturally come back to yourself with some color or form. Exhaling, you gradually fade into emptiness – empty, white paper. That is shikantaza. The important point is your exhalation. Instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, fade into emptiness as you exhale. 

To take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. When we always try to be alive, we have trouble. Rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we will be all right. Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother’s bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. Yet fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother’s bosom, and we will feel as though she will take care of us. Moment after moment, do not lose this practice of shikantaza.” 

This is very impressive quote to me. It is in alignment with the fourth Tetrad of the Anapanasati Sutra. The Anapanasati Sutra is composed of sixteen contemplations, which divide rather neatly into four sets of four: The body group, the feelings group, the mind group, and the wisdom group. They are in a “somewhat” developmental order in that mindfulness of the physical movements of the breath is the first emphasis in any concentration practice. The feelings group is ***becoming sensitive to rapture and joy in meditation***and then calming or letting go of rapture. The third group is the mind group – becoming aware of the mind, gladdening the mind, steadying the mind, and liberating the mind. (See “Breath by Breath” by Larry Rosenberg. This is a book Clouds in Water studied several years ago).

The fourth group the wisdom group is very similar to Suzuki Roshi’s quote above.

From a Thich Nhat Hanh translation:

13. I am breathing in and observing the impermanent nature of all dharmas. I am breathing out and observing the impermanent nature of all dharmas. He practices like this.

14. I am breathing in and observing the fading of all dharmas. I am breathing out and observing the fading of all dharmas. She practices like this.

15. I am breathing in and observing liberation (cessation). I am breathing out and observing liberation (cessation). He practices like this.

16. I am breathing in and observing letting go (relinquishment). I am breathing out and observing letting go (relinquishment). She practices like this.

This sutra demonstrates how the breath can take you all the way to the deepest realizations. The breath often is used as the first object of concentration. But it also can practiced as a complete teaching which leads to insight.

In Larry Rosenberg’s book, he writes about Buddhadasa’s approach to breath practice and its use for going all the way to realization. He writes:

“ When we got to the thirteenth contemplation – which concerns impermanence, this is where real vipassana begins – he said that Anapanasati was one of the simplest and most effective means for realizing emptiness.” 

Buddhadasa said: “There is no question that breathing is taking place. Can you see that there is no breather to be found anywhere? The body is empty, the breath is empty and you are empty.” 

Perhaps this is where Zen and Vipassana meet. Where the Mahayana and the Theravada come to the same conclusion.

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.http://www.judithragir.org/2014/01/exhaling-and-dissolving/

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.Adds are not mine. 

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Oxytocin for Pain, Treatment Resistant Depression and Bipolar Disorder

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Recent publications on Oxytocin are listed below. It is a very effective hormone made by the brain. It is NOT the opioid oxycodone and NOT oxycontin.

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Use search function top left above photo to see previous postings on oxytocin since 2013. It can be extremely important in the treatment of intractable pain, treatment resistant depression, bipolar disorder or anxiety.

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Once you titrate to the proper dose for each person —from 10 to 100 u’s, relief is quite astonishing, with rapid onset in a few minutes when given under the tongue – only after reaching that person’s dose, simple, without side effects. May use as needed 3 or 4 times per day. There is no withdrawal.

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Avoid use if polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). 

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Oxytocin must be made by a compounding pharmacy. Healthcare insurance refuses to reimburse for any compounded medications though they are far less expensive even than gabapentin that fails to help so many with pain, and oxytocin is far more effective. 

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Every time you hug someone, you are giving each other oxytocin. When your dog and you stare at each other, oxytocin is being stimulated. Having discussed that with one of my patients, he came back one month later to say he and his wife had fallen in love again after almost 50 years of marriage because they’ve been hugging every day: hugs stimulate oxytocin. 

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Behavioral effects of oxytocin are highly context- and person-dependent. You are not going to fall in love with someone you do not like. 

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Rash, JA, et al: Oxytocin & Pain, A Systematic Review & Synthesis of Findings. Clin J Pain 30(5):453-462, May 2014.

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Xin Q et al: The Analgesic Effects of Oxytocin in the Peripheral and Central Nervous System. Neurochemistry Intl 103:57-64, 2017.

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Paloyelis Y et al: The Analgesic Effect of Oxytocin in Humans: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study using laser-evoked potentials. 

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MacDonald K, Feifel D. Oxytocin’s role in anxiety: a critical appraisal. Brain Res 2014; 1580: 22–56.

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Churchland PPS, Winkielman P. Modulating social behavior with oxytocin: how does it work? What does it mean? Horm Behav 2012; 61: 392–399.

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Bethlehem, R A I  et al: Intranasal oxytocin enhances intrinsic corticostriatal functional connectivity in women, Translational Psychiatry, 2017, 7, 4, e1099 ********excellent********

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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Comments are welcome.

This site is not for email, not for medical questions, and not for appointments.

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For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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Please IGNORE THE ADS BELOW. They are not from me.

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If there be pain let it be

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It is also part of the Self.

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The Self is poorna (perfect).

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Sri Ramana Maharshi, the great enlightened spiritual giant who at age 16 experienced the highest thereafter until almost 100 years of age. May we be blessed to awaken with these high teachings.

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Pain? Really?

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Imagine you are sitting on the banks of the Holy Ganges.

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Is pain and suffering the most amazing way to kick one into instant and serious spiritual study? Buddha must be right. We must use it, no matter what we do, as it leads to freedom of suffering. Ancient teachings give the method. So again, relax, deep breath.

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Imagine you are sitting on the banks of the Holy Ganges.

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The most holy, most revered, most powerful Mother of the Universe revered by sages for more than 6,000 years, the Mother of the Universe is flowing in front of you. Imagine. Breathe. In the Holy Presence, the body mind is not you. There is no time, space, and causation to clearly perceive you, the one Self, pure consciousness. You always were, as you are right now. Consciousness itself, clouded by misperceptions, obstructions that prevent us seeing the awakened being we are.

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Ramana Maharshi taught the simplest, most direct method. No need for religion, or you may choose the path of religion, but all paths lead to the Absolute. All rivers lead to the ocean.

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If there be pain let it be.

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It is also part of the Self.

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The Self is poorna (perfect).

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We are not the body, not the mind.

We are the Self. The Infinite.

Always have been.

 

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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Comments are welcome.

This site is not for email, not for medical questions, and not for appointments.

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For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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Please IGNORE THE ADS BELOW. They are not from me.

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Naltrexone in Low Dose Reduces Pain & Depression

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We’ve known LDN helps pain since the turn of the century. Stanford could really shake the research world if they trialed LDN for Major Depressive Disorder, not the depression that improves with less pain, or in Multiple Sclerosis clinics or the Parkinson’s or Inflammatory Bowel Disease clinics. Is it too much to ask for better quality clinical research, not just results of patients responding by click or touch on a computer touch pad?

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The astonishing promise of low dose naltrexone (LDN) research remains in its infancy since 1984, 33 years ago, when it was discovered to offer profound clinical relief for multiple sclerosis and other serious conditions. I have prescribed naltrexone in ultra low and low dose since 2003, and discussed its central anti-inflammatory glial modulating mechanisms in 2009:

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Low dose naltrexone, or LDN, has been prescribed “off label” for persons with many conditions including intractable pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, complex regional pain syndrome, RSD, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinsons Disease, IBS, inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune diseases and Crohn’s Disease to mention only a few. Low dose naltrexone is not a cure but may be potentially helpful for selected persons with these conditions. It appears to have little or no toxicity at this low dose – a few persons report transient insomnia, nausea or vivid dreams.

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The same year in 2009, soon after my post on LDN, Drs. Younger and Mackey of Stanford Pain Center reported a double blind study of low dose naltrexone in persons who had fibromyalgia more than 10 years and showed 30% improvement in pain and fatigue.

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In 2016, five Stanford authors including Dr. Mackey published a poster presentation. At least the 2009 study was double blind; not this one. It was open label.

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A novel glial cell inhibitor, low dose naltrexone, reduces pain and depression, and improves function in chronic pain: A CHOIR study

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Poster presented at: Annual Meeting of the American Pain Society; May 11-14, 2016; Austin, TX. Poster 418.

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Authors: K. Noon,  J. Sturgeon, M. Kao, B. Darnall, S. Mackey

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Stanford University Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine, Stanford, CA

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Funding received from NIH and the Redlich Pain Endowment

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NIH funding should lead us forward, not back to a single open label study. One would hope Stanford would do the larger study they recommended 7 years ago. This adds to the CV of five researchers, but

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• does it help millions with chronic intractable pain?

• does it add to the growing body of clinical LDN experience worldwide?

• when will the mechanism and uses of LDN, the TLR4 receptor and the powerful innate immune system be taught by healthcare providers in academia, in practice, and in pharmacies, not just in basic science?

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The poster highlights the Stanford CHOIR Information Registry (discussed below), but provides almost nothing new despite the computing power of CHOIR that likely cost small fortunes. Patients are asked to enter clinic data into a convenient handheld click- or touch-based input device. What could be easier? We look forward to better studies from Stanford’s CHOIR devices and we long for the days when doctors publish better data that addresses the disabling pain, depression and needs of millions of our patients with chronic intractable pain.

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Stanford’s CHOIR Information System

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“We modified and implemented an existing, web-based system that administers computer-adaptive PRO questionnaires, called the Collaborative Health Outcomes Information Registry (CHOIR).  Next, we developed a messaging interface to send PRO results from CHOIR to the UF Health Epic EHR.

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The CHOIR system was developed at Stanford University by a team of informaticists and physicians who provided a no-cost license for our implementation. CHOIR utilizes a client-server architecture with web-based clinician and patient interfaces that use open source technologies, including jQuery mobile and Google Web Toolkit. Users can access CHOIR via web browsers on desktop or mobile devices. The primary patient user function is the completion of computer-adaptive PRO assessments using a click- or touch-based input device ( Figure 1 ).  Clinical user functions include registering patients to complete a PRO assessment, reviewing individual and summary PRO assessment results, longitudinal outcomes tracking, and clinical decision support through the aggregation of PRO result sets.”

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.The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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This site is not for email and not for appointments.

If you wish an appointment, please telephone the office to schedule.

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For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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Please IGNORE THE ADS BELOW. They are not from me.

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Medications denied for pain today – Celebrex, Skelaxin, Morphine, Oxycodone, Methadone, Suboxone

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Happy New Year. Medications are denied for pain one month after you sign onto new insurance based on medications they cover:

 

Celebrex, a generic NSAID, less risk of GI bleed which is an increased in seniors day by day as we age.

 

Skelaxone, generic muscle relaxant

 

Lorzone, muscle relaxant

 

Morphine 30 mg ER, generic, denied 3 per day, well within CDC guidelines

 

Methadone 10 mg 3/day, well within CDC guidelines

 

Oxycodone 5 mg 3/day, well within CDC guidelines

 

Suboxone generic,  FDA approved for addiction in US but not for pain; approved for pain and for addiction in EU.

 

Does insurance cover cost of medication?

 

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Pain’s mill wheel – Rabindranath Tagore

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SICKBED 5, by RABINDRANATH TAGORE  

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November 4, 1940
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Under this vast universe
pain’s mill wheel rotates,
grinds planets and stars to powder.
Sparks flash, scatter
suffering on every side,
ash-webs from annihilated worlds
permeating in an instant.
In the mills of oppression,
in cells of luminous consciousness,
pikes and knives clank,
wound-blood spurts.
The tiny human body—
infinite, its power to face pain.
In the assembly of creation and annihilation,
this small vessel of blood
offered to the Tantric circle
reels, drunken, rapturous.
The clay cup of the body fills
with incoherent blood, floods with tears.
Every moment unfolds unending
worth to consciousness, invincible.
The body’s pain-hallowed fire,
the offering sacrificed to ascetic acts of stars,
is incomparable.
Such enduring vigor,
compassion without fear,
indifference to death,
such triumphant processions:
assemblies trampling beds of flame
to find pain’s limits—
on a fevered, unnamed pilgrimage,
together, from path to path,
penetrating caves of fire, to find care’s origins,
provisions of unending love.

First Published in The Kenyon Review, Volume 23 #2

(Spring 2001)
http://www.kenyonreview.org/roth

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Opioids Kill White Americans – Is it opioids or suicide or addiction or untreated pain?

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“Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in

Mortality Rates of Young Whites“

New York Times

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Yes, white Americans, headlined yesterday by Gina Kolata and Sarah Cohen, New York Times science writers.  This article points to the highest mortality in young whites. See post early November on the Princeton researchers who reported deaths in white Americans. True, infants and children have severe pain, but this new article is on young white adults.

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Those who are anti-opioid and those who lost a loved one from opioids and heroin (an opioid that helps pain), will send in comments to the paper so that everyone can see how bad opioids are. Most patients who take opioids are too disabled from pain to write.

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Pain is stigmatized, opioids stigmatized, people in pain are stigmatized, doctors who treat pain are stigmatized. Any wonder 97% of medical schools do not teach pain management?

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Is it opioids or suicide or addiction or untreated pain that is killing our youth?

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How many suicides have opioids prevented? Americans make up less than 5% of the global population but consume 80% of the world’s supply of opioid prescription pills. What if your cancer pain now becomes severe intractable chronic pain? Cancer has been changing. The survival rate has increased, and many of these cancer patients treated with opioid therapy, survived the cancer but have residual chronic pain from cancer or its treatment. Surely they are among the 18,000 white people who died.

 

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Please read the earlier post this week on the ethics of opioid treatment, on

CDC’s imminent radical cut in opioid doses for 100 million patients nationwide.

Use search function above photo – type in CDC or DEA.

Your pain. Your lives. Their profit.

A thorny problem.

Tell us what happened to you. Doctors, tell us what you are seeing.

Have you been denied disability due to pain? Denied non-opioid treatment?

Chronic severe pain affects forty million Americans.

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Some insurers have denied or limited non-opioid treatments yet continued expensive opioids for decades. Has your insurance refused your treatment? Pain specialists have been barraged by denials for years.  Please comment below.

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As noted last week, I have spent 15 years developing alternatives to failed opioid treatment for chronic intractable pain and writing about that on these pages since April 2009. But opioids must be available as last resort.

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FACT:

• Opioids killed almost 18,000 Americans in 2014 – prescription opioids, not street drugs.

• 40 million American millions with severe pain, millions not thousands

• 100 million with chronic pain.

• CDC will imminently, radically cut everyone’s opioid dose

• Health insurers will oblige, and incidentally show increased profit to shareholders

• Suicide increases with untreated pain

• Death rates for “whites ages 25 to 34 was five times its level in 1999”

• This age group has more injuries from work and play that can lead to disability, job loss

• Insurance is unaffordable or not purchased by many young adults

• My own colleagues cannot afford high deductibles – prescriptions are now counted in deductibles, now unaffordable

• Can you afford $20,000 per month for your opioid or is cheap heroin more affordable? Can you afford your usual drugs on Medicare once you are in the “donut hole.” Can you afford $28 per day, $840 per month for gout, when colchicine was 12 cents a day a couple years ago?
  

  • Do insurance denials increase liklihood of cheaper alternatives such as heroin or illegal marijuana resulting in death by drug dealer?

  • Do exhorbitant costs of opioids lead insurers to deny your medication?

• Insurers have refused to pay for abuse-deterrent and tamper-resistant formulations of opioids

•  Insurers have refused to pay for proven, widely accepted, nonopioid analgesics:

  • Lyrica

  • Horizant

  • Gralise

  • Cymbalta

  • Does it help the DEA and NIH and universities to teach those as nonopioid alternatives when they are not covered and not affordable the rest of your life?

  • Insurers deny every known compounded analgesic though low cost and effective, even for Tricare’s disabled veterans, even 5% lidocaine ointment for nerve pain, dextromethorphan, oxytocin, low dose naltrexone – Stanford published research on naltrexone years ago and now doing research on it again for CRPS, many many others

  • Insurers deny proven analgesics that are used by armed forces, university hospitals, select doctors, for life threatening pain: ketamine
    

  • Insurers deny off-label analgesics that may work better than opioids, e.g. memantine, an Alzheimers drug – can relieve intractable nerve pain (French publication on CRPS/RSD pain)
    

  • Insurers deny medications that reduce side effects of opioids, e.g. nonaddicting modafinil popular with students, to increase alertness when opioids cause drowsiness that may cause injury, death – gosh 10 years ago!

  • Is drowsiness the cause of some of those 18,000 opioid deaths?
    

• Health insurers have refused coverage for treatments such as P.T., psychotherapy for coping skills, blocks.
  

• Insurers deny medications that relieve the withering side effects of opioid withdrawal, making it impossible for many to taper off, e.g. Adderall, Wellbutrin (dopamine)
  

• Cannabis, a nonopioid, classified by US Congress as Schedule I, illegal federally for human use, illegal to take on a plane or cross state/national borders, found on meteorites, made by sponges and some of the earliest living species on the planet, used for thousands of years for pain, while cocaine and methamphetamine are classified as Schedule II for prescription purposes.
  

• Opioids, even vicodin, require monthly doctor visits, costs, monthly for sixty years

• Why whites dying of opioids? People of color are denied prescription opioids. Stark data published for decades.

• Heroin is an opioid, cheap and available; its “unAmerican” – used in England for pain, used thousands of years for pain

• Untreated pain is one reason people turn to heroin, affordable is another

• Violence and drinking and taking drugs can begin with chronic pain and job loss, not always the other way around, chicken egg

• Opioids cost pennies to make, patient’s cost is $20,000 per month for Rx. Insurers paid what the market would bear… in the old days. Who is trapped in the middle of this fight for shareholder profit?
  

  • How many of us would take 2 or 4 extra pain pills when pain spikes to extreme for days?

  • If you are disabled, can you afford insurance or expensive prescription drugs?

• “Poverty and stress, for example, are risk factors for misuse of prescription narcotics,” Dr. Hayward said.

• When you are not getting enough sleep and rest, working too many hours overtime or 3 jobs, inflammation and pain spikes

• Misuse of opioids in > 33% (perhaps 48%?) of cancer patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in high resource settings when insurance was better, published 1990’s.

• Cancer pain – usually time limited. Intractable chronic pain – forever.
  .How many jobs will be lost and how many suicides when CDC imminently imposes strict cuts in opioids?

•  DEA recently requires every pain patient taking opioids, including those with cancer, to be diagnosed “Opioid Dependent” — not only addicts – the same diagnosis for pain patients includes addicts. The term “addiction” has been equated to dependence by most psychiatrist over the past 30 years. It may be interesting to see what criteria are used to define “addiction” if any, in DSM V. Some important members acknowledge that the addition of dependence into addiction in DSM-III was a mistake….the DSM-V criteria will get rid of “abuse”, and will include craving. it will also apparently eliminate the legal/criminal criteria. DSM comments are extracted from here, with many good arguments on this epidemic, such as: “The US is leading the way in eradicating pain, but in doing so has created an unwanted byproduct: painkiller addiction.”
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  What would you want if you had intense chronic pain?

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  “For too many, and especially for too many women,” she said, “they are not in stable relationships, they don’t have jobs, they have children they can’t feed and clothe, and they have no support network.”

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  “It’s not medical care, it’s life,” she said. “There are people whose lives are so hard they break.”

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Opioids kill – or is it untreated pain?

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Pain kills, a maleficent force.

No one can help you. Only you have the tools to do it

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Alarms went off for me on radical opioid cuts in October and I posted when

DEA suddenly held conferences across the nation on sharply cutting opioid doses.

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How many of us especially seniors and male persons refuse to learn or use coping skills that

reduce pain without medication?

How many of us refuse to diet and lose weight to reduce pain and/or disability?

Politicians are sued if they tax sales of sugar loaded soft drinks.

One single can of soda per day exceeds acceptable sugar limits for entire day.

Snacks need to say much much time it takes to burn off fat –

quarter of large pizza 449 calories, walk off 1 hr 23 min;

large coke 140 calories, walk off 30 minutes.

Foods can be anti-inflammatory or pro-inflammatory.

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Obesity is pro-inflammatory.

So is lack of sleep.

People who sleep with animals in their bed and their bedroom, I’m talking to you.

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Yes, pain is in your mind.

Chronic back pain is no longer in the back, it’s in the brain, the pain matrix.

It’s behavior, not just pills. Pain is an emotional and psychosocial  and spiritual experience.

Work on it! Constantly.

Lord forbid we should teach stress reduction and meditation in grade school

and improve school lunches before kids start looking for heroin for pain.

Yes, kids have chronic pain, are sleep deprived, often obese.

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Isn’t this all un-American?

Injuries, pain, habits, pace activities, learn to avoid and treat pain – start young.

Taxpayers end up paying for ignorance and disability.

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I will soon be posting published research that documents health insurers have refused to pay for nonopioid treatment and how health care policy aimed at all people with chronic pain leads to suicide when drastic cuts are made to opioid doses – Washington State we are looking at you. Florida you’ve made headlines and 60 Minutes TV specials years ago.

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Do please comment below if your health insurer has refused medication, physical therapy, psycho-therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, stress reduction, for chronic pain.

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How many of you have been denied social security disability by doctors who don’t know how to diagnose RSD, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome? Let me know. I will pass on that data to researchers collecting information on untreated pain.

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I have written many times on these pages, and more often than ever these past years as insurers cut back more and more. This will rapidly get worse. We need your data.

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Please send in your stories. You are not alone.

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So many issues. Steven Passik, PhD, was interview by Lynn Webster, MD – emphasis in bold is mine. Dr. Passik pioneered in management of chronic pain and pain in addicts. He has read some of Dr. Webster’s book. “You’re calling, the need for love and connection and all those things in the book, I’ve been – what’s largely lacking is outright, at times animosity towards people with pain and I think there’s a lot of projections sometimes because the therapy – the stigmatized disease – treated in stigmatized people with stigmatized drugs and interventions and so, it’s like a hat trick of stigma.  I’ve been to my share of pain conferences lately that people are really talking about, “Okay, well there’s come a realization that opioid-only, drug-only therapy, is really not going to work to the best majority of this population.  It doesn’t [mean] that opioids should be ignored and we’ll get into that later, but that they’re going to work in isolation and should never been expected to.  And then they start advocating things that are a lot like supportive and cognitive behavioral therapy and to be practiced basically by the primary care physician or the pain doctor.  And the idea that, to me that’s in a way comical because as a psychologist myself, we’re dealing with the system wherein cognitive behavioral therapists can’t even get paid to do cognitive behavioral therapy.  And so, I think something’s got to give, and I think one of the main obstacle is that – and this really gets into the next question as well but I’ll come back to that more specifically – but when people have a set of whatever chronic condition that involves psychiatric motivational, lifestyle, spiritual as well as nociceptive elements, and we put a premium only on what you do to people, prescribed to people, put in people, take out of people, and then that’s only going to relegate the other kinds of treatment or the other kinds of ways in which a caring physician and treatment team would spend time with the patient to the very poorly reimbursed category.  You’ll always going to have a problem with people being treated with the kind of respect that should go along with treating that kind of an illness and it’s not unique even to chronic pain.  I’ve seen treatment scenarios with people who are taking care of people with pancreatic cancer, have an afternoon clinic that has 45 people in it.  I mean how you – something’s got to give in our healthcare systems and I do think that patients are going to have to stand up and say, “I don’t want to be on a conveyor belt.  I want to spend some time and make a connection with the people that are taking care of me and it’s not just about the piece paper in my hands, for a prescription or that I walk out the door with.”

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 The New York Times article further says:

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…This is the smallest proportional and absolute gap in mortality between blacks and whites at these ages for more than a century,” Dr. Skinner said. If the past decade’s trends continue, even without any further progress in AIDS mortality, rates for blacks and whites will be equal in nine years, he said….

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…Not many young people die of any cause. In 2014, there were about 29,000 deaths out of a population of about 25 million whites in the 25-to-34 age group. That number had steadily increased since 2004, rising by about 5,500 — about 24 percent — while the population of the group as a whole rose only 5 percent. In 2004, there were 2,888 deaths from overdoses in that group; in 2014, the number totaled 7,558….

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…For young non-Hispanic whites, the death rate from accidental poisoning — which is mostly drug overdoses — rose to 30 per 100,000 from six over the years 1999 to 2014, and the suicide rate rose to 19.5 per 100,000 from 15, the Times analysis found….

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…For non-Hispanic whites ages 35 to 44, the accidental poisoning rate rose to 29.9 from 9.6 in that period. And for non-Hispanic whites ages 45 to 54 — the group studied by Dr. Case and Dr. Deaton — the poisoning rate rose to 29.9 per 100,000 from 6.7 and the suicide rate rose to 26 per 100,000 from 16, the Times analysis found….

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…Eileen Crimmins, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, said the causes of death in these younger people were largely social — “violence and drinking and taking drugs.” Her research shows that social problems are concentrated in the lower education group.

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

It is not a substitute for medical advice,

diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

Relevant comments are welcome.

If any questions, please call the office to schedule an appointment.

This site is not email for personal questions.

~~~~~

For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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Please be aware any advertising on this free website is

NOT advocated by me and NOT approved by me.

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Be the change you wish to see – or walk away. Money at NIH

 

 

A Turning Point

 

$$$$$ MONEY $$$$$

 

at NIH

 

May not come this way again

 

NIH developing

5-year NIH-wide Strategic Plan

 

 

 

Donate to organizations, below

They can provide feedback to NIH via the

RFI Submission site

 

 

 

John C. Liebeskind, 1935 – 1997, distinguished scholar and researcher, past president of the American Pain Society, had the radical idea that pain can affect your health.

 

Research decades ago by an Israeli team at UCLA and others had shown “that pain can accelerate the growth of tumors and increase mortality after tumor challenge.” Decades ago Professor Liebeskind lectured all over the country: Pain kills.

 

He wrote an editorial in 1991, summarizing a life’s work:

 

“Pain and stress can inhibit immune function.”

 

 

Quoting John Bonica, the father of modern pain management, he wrote:

 

“Bonica has long argued that the term ‘chronic benign pain’ (used in distinction to pain associated with cancer) is seriously misleading.  Chronic pain is never benign, he contends; “it is a ‘malefic force’ that can devastate its victims’ lives and even lead to suicide.”

 

 

Liebeskind continues, “It appears that the dictum ‘pain does not kill,’ sometimes invoked to justify ignoring pain complaints, may be dangerously wrong.”

 

Pain mediates immune function

 

Importantly

 

  Opioids mediate the suppressive effect of stress on natural killer cells,

 

 published in 1984, immune system.

 

Alcohol increases tumor progression, 1992, immune system.

 

It used to be news.

He did not live to see change.

 

People just want to go on doing what they’re doing.

They want business as usual.

 

 

After 1991, we saw the great discoveries of neuroinflammation, pioneered by Linda Watkins, PhD, the early understanding of the innate immune system, its involvement in chronic pain and depression, and a few weeks ago, a British team showed neuroinflammation in teens with early signs of schizophrenia and DNA markers.

 

 

Major Depression has the same neuro-inflammation found in chronic pain, often responding to same medications, in particular glial modulators – immune modulators. Now, perhaps early schizophrenia will respond to glial modulators, reducing inflammation seen on scan in teens, before they become homeless and burned out by antipsychotic drugs

 

Inflammation out of control destroys neurons

 

Fire on the brain

 

 

We must be the change we wish to see

 

It’s not just the Bern. It’s been starting. Forces are finally coming together. We want change. It’s been too much. Too long.

 

We won’t take it anymore.

 

I figure if I tell you about it, you might just mention it to someone to pass it on. That is all. One small action may lead to change. Activate inputs to the NIH strategic plan.

 

 

~ Action needed ~

 

Prices of drugs becoming unaffordable

No new drugs for pain or major depression

Research to repurpose existing drugs

Expose the politics destroying our compounding pharmacies

 

Above all

The #1

Major Priority:

Request NIH to solicit priority call for research on

Glial modulators of the

Innate immune system

 

 

Why?

 

Glia modulate

chronic pain, major depression

and almost every known disease

 

Glia are your innate immune system

 

Inflammation kills

 

 

 

 Stress kills. Inflammation kills.

 

 

Pain kills

 

In the 1970’s, Professor Liebeskind and an Israeli team at UCLA injected cancer cells to two groups of rats that had sham surgery. Cancer spread much faster and killed far sooner in the group with poor treatment of surgical pain.

 

 

~ Pain kills ~

 

He lectured all over the country

 

Forty five years ago

 

 

I’m gonna be dead before I see this country do anything but unaffordable opioids and the magical ineffective trio of gabapentin, Lyrica, Cymbalta to treat chronic pain. The devastating, blind, nationwide emphasis does nothing to address the cause: inflammation, the innate immune system gone wild.

 

 

Innate immune system in action

 

Untreated pain suppresses the hormone systems too.

 

Untreated depression – same inflammation kills lives.

 

Where’s the money?

 

We are the change we wish to see. It’s pitiful I am so lazy. Suddenly, too late, we may need something, but, aha, no new drugs in the pipeline.

 

 

 

~ Make a joyful cry to NIH ~

 

They are soliciting input from professional societies

 

If your condition has failed all known drugs for pain or major depression, then make a joyful cry to NIH, now, before they give away all that nice new $$$$$money$$$$$.

 

 

Follow and join

 

American Pain Society

 

 

International Association for Pain

celebrating 40 years of pain research

 

 

Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association

help for CRPS/RSD  

 

 

 

The key to CRPS/RSD pain will apply to all forms of chronic pain, in particular the most difficult form, neuropathic pain. RSDSA funds research into all forms of chronic pain, not only Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS/RSD). Their scientific board members are not funded by opioid money.

 

 

 

Exactly

what is the annual cost of care

as fraction of GDP

for the growing population of Americans on opioids

for one year, for lifetime?

 

 

People are dying from prescription opioids and those who need them find they don’t work well enough. Prescriptions opioid costs must be a huge fraction of the medical costs in the United States GDP. You are required  to see a doctor every single month each year, often lifelong, just for one opioid, 12 months a year x 30 years x tens of millions of people and increasing – a growth industry. Not even counting $600 a day for the opioid, what the cost of monthly visits for 30 years? Not counting the army of DEA, FDA, CDC agents watching the opioids like a hawk. We all have to be sharp, addiction is growing. Addiction aside, deaths from prescription opioids are shaking up the CDC forcing urgent change this coming month.

 

 

 

Opioids do not work well for chronic pain

We need better

It’s not just the $600/day price

They just don’t work

 

 

donate

 

 

Raise a joyful noise at NIH now or write back at us readers with comments and better suggestions. Tell others what you’d like to see. Which politicians do you know would be most interested in this at national levels and organizations?

 

You may never see this change unless you do it now. Other forces will get this new money.

 

 

Turning point now

May not return

 

 

We are at a turning point and we will fail to catch the sail that’s coming fast to carry all research money in their shiny big stem cell direction. They never look back.

 

 

There is so many medications we can use today, FDA approved drugs that can be re-purposed and applied to recent cutting edge science. Someone must pay to do the work to study this.

 

 

Re-purpose old drugs

 

 

Stanford just showed a popular generic drug improved recovery of stroke paralysis in mice to begin at 3 days rather than 30. Old drug, new purpose, of course more years of testing to confirm in humans. Brilliant team applying new science.

 

 

Request
NIH to solicit a

Special Invitation

for 30 good protocols to

repurpose old drugs

 

 

Hundreds of old drugs, already approved, could be involved in mechanisms we have recently learned about. Speak up or money will go to shiny new stem cells. None for chronic pain or major depression. No company will find this profitable – it must be funded by NIH. A popular generic sleeping pill can bring astonishing return from stroke paralysis.

 

 

Congress has not opened this new money to NIH in many long years. How often will there be extra money?

 

 

donate

 

 

Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Principal Deputy Director, NIH, solicits you to

Review the NIH Strategic Initiative Plan and their

Request for Information (RFI) and the NIH website

and provide your feedback via the RFI Submission site

 

 

This is for “stakeholder organizations (e.g., patient advocacy groups, professional societies) to submit a single response reflective of the views of the organization/membership as a whole. We also will be hosting webinars to gather additional input. These webinars will be held in early to mid-August.

 

 

 

Be the change you wish to see

Donate to those organizations

to solicit the change you wish to be

 

 

 

Happy New Year

Rejoice!

There’s money at NIH

 

 

 

 

 

 

The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

Relevant comments are welcome.

If any questions, please schedule an appointment with my office.

This site is not for email.

~~~~~

For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

 

 

 

 

Opioids and Deaths – If Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Can Do It, Why Can’t My Hospital OK Herbal & Compounded Medications?

 

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Gina Kolata reports in NYT

on the breaking study by two Princeton Economists    

 

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The key figure

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“The two Princeton economics professors — Angus Deaton and his wife, Anne Case — who wrote the report that is the subject of my front-page article today about rising death rates for middle-aged white Americans, have no clear answer, only speculation. But the effect is stark. Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case calculate that if the death rate among middle-aged whites had continued to decline at the rate it fell between 1979 and 1998, half a million deaths would have been avoided over the years from 1999 through 2013. That, they note, is about the same number of deaths as those caused by AIDS through 2015.”

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“…The dismal picture for middle-aged whites makes Case and Deaton wonder how much of what they are seeing might be attributed to the explosive increase in prescription narcotics.”

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“What’s interesting, Dr. Case said, is that the people who report pain in middle age are the people who report difficulty in socializing, shopping, sitting for three hours, walking for two blocks.”

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“Dr. Deaton envisions poorly educated middle-aged white Americans who feel socially isolated are out of work, suffering from chronic pain and turning to narcotics or alcohol for relief, or taking their own lives. Starting in the 1990s, he said, there was a huge emphasis on controlling pain, with pain charts going up in every doctor’s office and a concomitant increase in prescription narcotics.”

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“We don’t know which came first, were the drugs pushed so much that people are hypersensitive to pain or does overprescription of the drugs make pain worse?” Dr. Case said.”

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“Dr. Deaton noted that blacks and Hispanics may have been protected to an extent. Some pharmacies in neighborhoods where blacks and Hispanics live do not even stock those drugs, and doctors have been less likely to prescribe them for these groups. Dr. Deaton said.”

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“A black person has to be in a lot more pain to get a prescription,” Dr. Case said. “That was thought to be horrible, but now it turns out to maybe have a silver lining.”…..

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Commenter: “D. Morris 1 hour ago
“unfortunately it’s easier to get a prescription of Oxycontin, or legally buy a handgun, than it is to get affordable mental health care in…”

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My Comments are too long, need days of edits, no time to do.

We have so many inexpensive generic medications in allopathic, Ayurvedic, and complementary medicine that are never taught.

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It is cost effective for Universities to limit their instruction to Anesthesia pain that teaches procedures. Thank goodness when they work. But is that all we teach? I fear the answer is yes. That was all that was available in Santa Monica in the early and mid 1990’s, after UCLA closed the Anesthesiology Interdisciplinary Pain Management Center in 1991 – others closed nationwide. It is cost effective to teach and do procedures.

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Epidurals

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 Bread and butter epidurals have never been compared to the same steroid and local anesthetic injected to the adjacent muscle without putting a needle into the spine. It could be equally as effective, able to be done in office, without surgery and x-ray scheduling, but then it would not be a good income generator. Selective nerve root blocks and facet blocks can be very helpful. But are epidurals just flooding the area with the same effect as a local muscle injection? What are we teaching before we get to procedures? How many patients can afford to take time off from work or school for repeated costly procedures?

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Glial modulators, compounded medications

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It would help if MD’s were trained (with CME credit) in the use of generic medications to include glial modulators that mitigate the need for high doses of opioids. There is often more relief than expensive procedures and hardware can provide – which may not work or may be short lasting and unaffordable for many, either due to cost or time away from work every few weeks.

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Physical Therapy

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Good training in Physical Therapy would be the very first step, not by PhD’s who teach fine academic theory, but by certified Orthopedic Physical Therapists with decades of bedside experience are needed to teach therapists who have shown time and again that the most basic P.T. is not being done in this country. Even people with purely neuropathic pain often develop mechanical changes, splinting to avoid pain. That must also be addressed.   

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I do not mean to imply that opioids are not useful. But there is more to pain relief than opioids and I suspect it may not be taught at all. Opioids rightfully remain on the WHO list of ten most essential medications. But when you use them – and believe me I am a wimp and would not be able to tolerate pain, but when you use opioids for years and years, how effective will they be when you really need them far more?

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Opioids are essential for many of my patients and when they fail, when all drugs fail including opioids, I know one thing is on their mind, and it grieves me that this country does not care enough to fund more than a pittance for pain research. This country must do better. Nobel prizes are abundant in La Jolla, but how about translational research in the clinics where we try to keep patients functioning and able to return to work without opioids.

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Drugs do not address muscle

Trigger Points

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Any doctor can do simple trigger point injections if they knew how to identify trigger points, the classic spots on common overused muscles that mimic disabling knee pain or headache or loss of grip strength, yes a strained, shortened brachioradialis – not neurological but do MD’s know?  P.T. specialists too, I hope they know trigger points, but they are not always communicating them to me because I find them and they can be simple.

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Could they add the identification and training of doctors to know meaningful differences in types of physical therapy. They all should be taught by an Orthopedic Physical Therapist like Bruce Inniss who trained decades ago at Rancho Los Amigos, a national treasure center back then innovating care for the most difficult paralyzed, handicapped and publishing it. Not the fancy PhD theory that the newer P.T. grads know – good but not best. Why don’t all physical therapists know the basics Bruce finds every day —- the same basics that were never once treated in the 30 years that my disabled patients were forced to return to. They come from the best university specialists in the country, and they all groan when I say “P.T.” until the next day after they have seen Bruce for their “intractable pain.” Thirty years of lost life. Expensive, joyless, hoping for the worst, praying for the day you will be old enough for Medicare so you could afford care because it has cost you your life savings. I am grateful for academic researchers for their brilliance, their ability to tolerate an academic environment. Best of all I love their shiny new cardiology toys and Dr. Topol translating medicine over wi-fi. Lets not leave behind the basics.

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It shocks me to see some of the basic things were overlooked or not even considered in people who come to me, often seen by the best five pain centers in the country. Of course I rely on those centers who may be able to help my patients. But I am shocked by the omission of simple basics: physical therapy being a key ingredient. That alone could save lives and save our taxpayers billions if the investment were contemplated.

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Last week, the well respected pain specialist Joseph Shurman, MD, at Scripps, said that young Rehabilitation Pain Specialists were rare. Few are going into Pain Management from an essential field. It’s a tough field, changing daily.

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What about other things?

 Compounded medication

Botanical, Ayurvedic, Herbals

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Hospital and university pharmacy committees must begin to open their minds to highly valued compounded and herbal drugs made by respected compounding pharmacists. We all know the high volume thieves who delivered contaminated IV’s, and had  the cheapest prices that brought a bad name, but why stop beneficial interstitial cystitis infusions ordered for decades by the senior specialist in the field? This attitude against compounding and against highly recognized herbal and Ayurvedic preparations must be improved. For example, Boswellia sold by Gliacin.com points to studies by the headache specialist in Scottsdale who trained at the Mayo Migraine Clinic. His site has publications showing 7 of the most intractable Indocin-responsive headache syndromes were improved with Gliacin (Boswellia)..

Most notable in the field is the website and research by Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on herbals and botanicals. You can hardly exclude half the country from your hospital if they found relief at last?  Surely you must teach and know the effects of patient use on FDA approved medications you are prescribing.

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What happens to that patient, whose intractable pain

responds only to compounded medicine,

when they have to be admitted to hospital or rehab

for weeks where compounded medications are forbidden?

Do we make you worse to get you better?

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Hospitals and universities are run by respected seniors, whip smart, who have no experience with many tools that are essential to many in our population. They are rightfully very protective of our beloved high technology centers and want no lawsuits from unapproved drugs not sold by big pharmaceutical companies. Not all of us live in such rarefied privileged worlds in our daily lives. We already have the tools and could use many of them at home without burdening resources. I would love to see physicians on hospital pharmacy committees work side by side with compounding pharmacists and be protected by law for using such inexpensive medications. Insurers have stopped coverage for compounded medications in the last four years, finishing the job in June with Tricare no longer paying. Medicare never has.

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So goes medicine in this country. We all lose. We are reaching for bright shiny things that dazzle me too. Don’t forget to keep the basics, the first thing I learned when teaching at UCLA Epilepsy Center. Often, the basics were not omitted. Case solved.

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It’s hard to know what to trust in so-called alternative treatment, but we must begin to trust if we have evaluated the credentials of best providers. Can we not trust even your patient’s heavily documented history? 

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We must do better. It is costing too many lives. The study I mention, above, just published, is tragic and predictable. Just ask any of us who see this daily. Ask your neighbors and family.

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Politicians could give us a law to protect hospitals from law suit if they allow compounded medications from highly respected compounding pharmacists who are owners of high quality small trusted pharmacies — not those big ones without supervision, where quarterly profit is the goal. We must keep these precious resources of medicine alive so that only the upper middle class can afford them. Does everything have to have overpriced studies and FDA approval with publications by many peers? We all know what that did to colchicine pills used for 100 years for gout, taken 3 times a day. Everyone knew they worked. But if you are the 1%, you invest a little and you can charge $7 each, $21 every single day for just one pill for life, instead of pennies a day.   

 

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INTRACTABLE PAIN IS NOT INTRACTABLE

IF YOU USE THE TOOLS YOU ALREADY HAVE

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It is past time we start teaching tools for pain that many of us daily encounter. Teach to doctors and physical therapists at the very least, but bring it into middle school and even younger.

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So many people are forced to put up with lack of medical care, lack of jobs, lack of income, and disability from working in factories owned by the 1% who control care, often through worker’s compensation.

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Now insurers require ICD10 codes before pharmacy can fill an antidepressant. That feels like ICD10 prison, and this comes at the same time as 70,000 new codes – merely an extra 50 hours a week. Why is the MD not the judge of medication after due deliberation of all the details, all the failed drugs. Practicing medicine without a license has become the standard of care since 1990, out of the doctor’s hands. Now that and insurance will not accept a prior authorization for a low dose of 25 mcg patch the patient has required for the last ten years for their lupus, Sjogren’s, RSD, and painful neuropathy. We have all felt its claws.

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computer system errors may appear typing letters out of sequence – please forgive, no time to edit and finding gremlins everywhere, possibly in the opinions so dangerously passionate. We can do better America. You don’t have to take it. Step up! Vote for the ones who care about your well being.

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 , Ayurvedic, Herbal “