Chronic Pain

Lack of correlation reinforces the need to individualize therapy based on clinical effectiveness for that patient in order to optimize treatment outcomes.

Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, BCPS, CPE, FASPE, shows healthcare professionals how to apply an equianalgesic opioid dosing chart to 12 complicated patient cases requiring an opioid switch.

Although clinical psychiatrist Michael E. Schatman, PhD, CPE, formerly "beat the hell out of the opioid industry," he spent an hour on the PAINWeek stage supporting his new belief that "maybe it's time to stop fighting."

Two literature reviews of single-arm open-label (OL), open-label extension (OLE), and epidemiologic studies with a duration of six months or more provide evidence that long-term opioid therapy improves pain scores in chronic non-cancer pain patients.

Michael R. Clark, MD, MPH, MBA, outlines the vulnerabilities that put patients with acute pain at risk of transitioning into new chronic pain.

Fibromyalgia patients who don't respond to Lyrica (pregabalin) may see their pain scores significantly improve after adding Savella (milnacipran) to their treatment regimens.

Transforaminal epidural steroid injections (TFEI) have become a more common approach to relieving chronic lumbar radicular pain, but until now, no published clinical reports had directly compared morphine with tramadol for that indication.

A high-potency probiotic supplement that mimics the effect of morphine in the gut may reduce the development of visceral pain in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Pain is a common symptom in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), with some studies showing that clinically significant pain associated with their disease is experienced by more than half of patients with MS.

Results of a recent clinical trial by researchers at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in the Affiliated Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University, in Shanghai, China, have deemed locally injected methylcobalamin more effective than its orally administered counterpart as a treatment for subacute herpetic neuralgia.

The agency rejected a request from the painkiller's manufacturer to outlaw generic versions lacking tamper-resistant features just weeks after deciding the opposite way for generic versions of OxyContin.

Treating postherpetic neuralgia patients with the oral opioid agonist tramadol may significantly reduce moderate to severe nerve pain.

With what we now know about opioid misuse and abuse, we need to take the necessary steps to ensure that only abuse-resistant/deterrent medications are used for our patients taking ER/LA opioid medications.