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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 […]
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
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
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
The live varicella-zoster vaccine can effectively prevent shingles in rheumatoid arthritis patients starting treatment with the drug tofacitinib, according to results of 2 recently-published studies in Arthritis & Rheumatology. Shingles causes a painful rash that may appear as a stripe of blisters on the trunk of the body. Pain can persist even after the rash is gone
The inherent potential of stem cells to engender any cellular form and function drives the field of regenerative medicine. In recent years, stem cell research has witnessed prolific growth particularly in disease-modeling, drug discovery and patient-specific cell therapy. A major challenge in stem cell-mediated therapy is to understand and promote integration of transplanted stem cells
In the wake of mounting overdoses and deaths from the opioids-addiction crisis sweeping across the U.S., drugmakers are racing to come up with safer painkillers. Companies are highly motivated to create alternatives to the $4 billion opioid market. The federal government is cracking down on lax prescriptions that contribute to many thousands of deaths a
Nicotinamide riboside (NR), a type of vitamin B3, may prevent chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a recent study in animals has shown. Although chemotherapy increases survival rates, it can have serious side effects, including peripheral neuropathy, that affect quality of life.1 “Our findings support the idea that NR could potentially be used to prevent or mitigate
A study led by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has shown that chronic pain may occur when pain receptors migrate from the nerve cell’s surface to the cell’s inner chambers, out of the reach of current pain medications. The discovery, in rodents, may lead to the development of a new class of medications for chronic
Nearly every advance in modern medicine, from diagnosis to treatment, has benefited from animal studies. Basic research has made vital contributions to all aspects of medical care, including our understanding of pain pathophysiology. However, the applicability of these findings to humans remains limited. “Translation from animal to human is hindered by many obstacles, in particular
