Chronic Pain

WASHINGTON - An experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis has caused death, strokes, nerve damage and abdominal bleeding and has no proven benefits for sufferers of the disease, the Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday. Known as liberation therapy, the treatment targets chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency - or CCSVI - a narrowing of the veins in the head and neck. It involves inserting balloons or stents into veins to widen them in an attempt to relieve the symptoms of MS. The FDA received reports in 2011 of a patient who died from bleeding in the brain after undergoing the treatment and another who was left permanently paralyzed by a stroke.

A Northridge doctor's license was suspended Thursday after medical authorities found that he had been injecting his daughter at home with propofol, the same drug that killed pop star Michael Jackson. Robert S. Markman, a retired anesthesiologist, constructed a treatment area in his adult daughter's "filthy" house, in a bedroom she rarely left, the Medical Board of California alleged in a ruling on an interim suspension order made public Thursday. Markman, according to the board's order, injected his daughter, referred to only as L.M., with the surgical anesthetic about 500 times over five years.

For many who suffer depression, chronic pain is a frequent fellow traveler. As many as half of those with chronic pain or with neuropathic pain disorders, such as fibromyalgia, have depression as well. That the two are so often bound together suggests a complex relationship, and the brain's shared circuitry for social and physical pain may lie at its heart. Depression and chronic pain are distinct but similar disorders. But both may arise from some faulty wiring in their shared neural circuitry, researchers say. In both disorders, pain continues long after some initial insult has healed, disappeared or moved on, and the experience of social rejection or physical pain persists, feeds on itself and becomes chronic.

The sunny fact that Americans are living longer, more productive lives has a dark side: More of us than ever live with chronic illnesses that are not only a drag on sufferers' time and energy, but on the nation's pocketbook. The Institute of Medicine on Tuesday put a dollar figure on the cost of caring for chronic illness in the United States--$1.5 trillion yearly, fully three-fourths of annual healthcare spending. A panel of experts called on policymakers to do more to prevent and track the big nine chronic diseases that most drain the nation's wallet.

Chronic pain is usually thought of as a problem affecting adults. But a new study shows that chronic pain is also highly prevalent in children and that more kids today suffer from pain compared with two decades ago. Researchers in Nova Scotia analyzed data from 41 studies on pain in children published since 1991,which was the last time such an analysis was completed. They found that chronic pain conditions are more common in girls than boys and that pain problems tend to increase with age. Headache is the most common type of chronic pain in kids, with 23% of children age7 to 18 reporting weekly headaches and 5% reporting daily headaches.

If you've had it, you would know. Chronic itchiness -- often the result of skin conditions such as psoriasis , eczema or allergies -- disrupts sleep, dims pleasure and limits activities. Just as much as chronic pain does. Now it's official: A study published online this week by the Archives of Dermatology has found that those who suffer from unrelenting itch, generally for six months to a year, have been brought every bit as low by their condition as have chronic-pain sufferers.

Pain is more than just a complaint -- it’s a public health issue. And the time has come to do something about it. So concludes a new report from the Institute of Medicine, written at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services.  The report , mandated by the healthcare overhaul law, estimates that chronic pain costs between $560 billion and $635 billion each year in medical expenses and lost productivity. But, it adds, pain is also personal, affecting each person individually.

As the advertisement for the antidepressant Cymbalta says, "Depression hurts. Cymbalta can help. " Chronic pain hurts too. And the makers of the drug duloxetine -- commercially known as Cymbalta -- argue that Cymbalta can help with that, as well. Chronic pain hurts, too. And the makers of the drug duloxetine--commercially known as Cymbalta --argue Cymbalta can help with that, as well.  So Eli Lilly and Co. on Thursday  made the case to a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that its antidepressant, which has been approved for diabetic nerve pain and fibromyalgia, should get the FDA's blessing as a treatment for a wide range of chronic pain conditions, including those caused by osteoarthritis.

For more than a decade, Cheryl Clark has lived with the chronic pain that accompanies fibromyalgia. After years of suffering with severe flu-like aches and pains, she finally found some relief — but it didn't come from a pill or a shot. It came from exercise. Several times a week, Clark heads to the warm-water pool and the gym at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona. Her pain, she says, has gone from a six or seven on a 10-point scale scale down to a one or two. "It would kill me to walk from the car to the doctor's office.

Dealing with our doctors should not be more difficult than dealing with disease. Yet for the millions of women who suffer from chronic pain, that's the way it has always been. While gender discrimination has significantly decreased, it is still shockingly pervasive in the medical establishment. For instance, when men complain to doctors about chronic pain, they are handed a prescription; when women complain, they are often told, "It's all in your head."

Chronic pain is usually thought of as a problem affecting adults. But a new study shows that chronic pain is also highly prevalent in children and that more kids today suffer from pain compared with two decades ago. Researchers in Nova Scotia analyzed data from 41 studies on pain in children published since 1991,which was the last time such an analysis was completed. They found that chronic pain conditions are more common in girls than boys and that pain problems tend to increase with age. Headache is the most common type of chronic pain in kids, with 23% of children age7 to 18 reporting weekly headaches and 5% reporting daily headaches.

Seeing the movements of a healthy hand mirroring one's own movements plays a welcome trick on the brains of arthritis sufferers, a new study shows: It reduces the perception of pain. The observation, reported this week at the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference , could offer a safe, inexpensive means of dampening chronic pain by enlisting the brain's power of suggestion. The small  arthritis study, which tested just eight subjects, comes from the lab of UC San Diego neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran -- who first used mirror-based trickery to treat phantom-limb pain in patients who have had an amputation.

A sunburn’s hot and aching soreness is difficult to ease, even after slathering on aloe vera, and especially when tossing and turning at night. Now researchers say they’ve found a protein responsible for this inflammatory pain. Targeting this molecule could eventually lead to new ways to relieve not only soreness from too much time at the beach but also other types of chronic pain. To reach their conclusion, researchers burned tiny patches of skin on human volunteers with UVB light (the type of radiation classically associated with skin cancer)

Pain is more than just a complaint -- it’s a public health issue. And the time has come to do something about it. So concludes a new report from the Institute of Medicine, written at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services.  The report , mandated by the healthcare overhaul law, estimates that chronic pain costs between $560 billion and $635 billion each year in medical expenses and lost productivity. But, it adds, pain is also personal, affecting each person individually.

If you've had it, you would know. Chronic itchiness -- often the result of skin conditions such as psoriasis , eczema or allergies -- disrupts sleep, dims pleasure and limits activities. Just as much as chronic pain does. Now it's official: A study published online this week by the Archives of Dermatology has found that those who suffer from unrelenting itch, generally for six months to a year, have been brought every bit as low by their condition as have chronic-pain sufferers.

People with fibromyalgia suffer from chronic pain throughout the body, especially in their joints, muscles and tendons. But research shows that exercise can make patients feel better and improve their quality of life. Dr. Ginevra Liptan, an authority on the disorder at the Oregon Health Sciences Center, has conducted research on how a type of massage therapy of the fascia tissue -- the connective tissue surrounding muscles -- can help relieve discomfort. To find out more about the therapy and how exercise and fibromyalgia are linked, join a live Web chat Monday at 11 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. CDT, 2 p.m. EDT)

Capsaicin, a chemical that gives cayenne peppers their fiery sting, can chill out persistent pain following shingles and may someday help ease chronic pain from diabetes or surgery, a study shows. Dr. Mark Dahl, professor of dermatology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said the finding is not as strange as it sounds.

Relief from agonizing chronic pain appears to be on the way for people who have had serious injuries or with diseases such as cancer, AIDS and diabetes, according to researchers. A Dartmouth Medical School study of laboratory rats found that neuropathic pain, which is impervious to traditional painkillers, can be inhibited by blocking the action of small bodily proteins called cytokines in the central nervous system. The study results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Assn.

Patients on higher doses of opioid painkillers are more likely to accidentally overdose than those prescribed lower doses, a new study finds. Those who were prescribed more than 100 milligrams of painkillers a day overdosed more than people limited to 1 to 20 milligrams, researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor, Mich., found. The trend stayed true whether the patient had acute pain, chronic pain, a substance abuse problem or cancer. White, middle-age men were statistically more likely to overdose.

Chronic pain -- the kind that lasts for months or recurs regularly – afflicts more than a quarter of adult Americans. Treating pain can be extremely challenging, however, in part because it can't be measured with instruments. It's in the eye -- or neck or joint -- of the beholder. Doctors often prescribe powerful painkillers called opioids -- natural or synthetic versions of opium. Sometimes the prescription is for short-term, acute pain: If you've ever had a root canal or surgery or thrown out your back, you may have received a prescription for Percocet or Vicodin, both of which are opioids that also contain acetaminophen.