Multivitamins May Reduce CIPN

Women who take multivitamin supplements before their breast cancer diagnosis and during chemotherapy appear to be less likely to develop the debilitating, often long-lasting symptoms of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), according to a new study.   In a large study of breast cancer patients undergoing paclitaxel chemotherapy, those who used multivitamins were about 40% less likely to suffer sensory loss. The researchers published their results online ahead of print in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “Our study showed that use of multivitamin supplements, but not specific vitamins, was associated with less neurotoxicity. This was true for use before diagnosis and, to…
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Shingles Pain Cause Discovered

It is very likely that when you were a child, you had chickenpox, a mostly benign condition that despite making you extremely itchy, required you to miss a week or two of school. While most parents would think their children are safe from the infection after its resolved, what they don’t realize is that it may show up later in life in a painful form called shingles. A constant feature of shingles is neuralgia—intense pain affecting mainly the nerves of the chest and neck, the trigeminal nerve in the fact, and the lower back. New research out of the University of…
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Neuromodulation and Regenerative Medicine Advances

Highlights from the American Society of Interventional Physicians annual meeting, including neuromodulation, humanistic care, vertebral augmentation, regenerative medicine, controlled substance prescribing, and more. There are numerous medical conferences that Practical Pain Management (PPM) tries to attend and cover. We are fortunate that when the PPM staff can’t attend a conference, we usually can call upon one of our expert editorial board members to act as our “roving reporter.” We were fortunate to have Elmer G. Pinzon, MD, MPH, physiatrist at the University Spine and Sports Specialists in Knoxville, Tennessee, attend this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP), held…
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Algae molecule might put the brakes on arthritis

Arthritis is a degenerative disease that eats away at the joints and is rather difficult to treat, with a cure so far remaining out of reach. But research has now uncovered a new glimmer of hope, in the form of molecule taken from algae that, when modified, might just stop the degenerative effects in their tracks. According to Swiss research institute Empa, to varying extents, arthritis affects around 90 percent of people over the age of 65, making it the most widespread of joint diseases. The condition is characterized by the degradation of the cartilage in the joint, most typically…
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Neuroscientists Focus on Cell Mechanism That Promotes Chronic Pain

Researchers have discovered a new pain-signaling pathway in nerve cells that eventually could make a good target for new drugs to fight chronic pain. The findings, published in the journal PLoS Biology by a UT Dallas neuroscientist and his colleagues, suggest that inhibiting a process called phosphorylation occurring outside of nerve cells might disrupt pain signals, and provide an alternative to opioid drugs for alleviating chronic pain. Dr. Ted Price, the study’s co-author and associate professor of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas, said the finding is significant. “We found a key new signaling pathway that can be managed,” Price…
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