Pain Management And Why It’s So Personal
Most of my patients think about pain medicines in terms of the symptoms they treat. “This is my headache medicine, and this is my arthritis medicine,” they often say. Healthcare providers are more likely to categorize pain medicines by the way they work: some are anti-inflammatory, some affect nerve endings, and others influence how the brain perceives pain. But the truth is that no matter how you classify pain medicines, there is no way to know if they’ll help until you try them for yourself.
Most people don’t realize that pain management is personal. Research is beginning to help us understand why people ...
Source: Better Health - October 20, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Dr. Val Jones Tags: Health Tips Opinion Acetaminophen How To Treat Pain Ibuprofen OTC OTC Pain Medicines Personalized Medicine Side Effects Which Pain Medicine Is Best Source Type: blogs
Pain Management And Why It ’ s So Personal
Most of my patients think about pain medicines in terms of the symptoms they treat. “This is my headache medicine, and this is my arthritis medicine,” they often say. Healthcare providers are more likely to categorize pain medicines by the way they work: some are anti-inflammatory, some affect nerve endings, and others influence how the brain perceives pain. But the truth is that no matter how you classify pain medicines, there is no way to know if they’ll help until you try them for yourself.
Most people don’t realize that pain management is personal. Research is beginning to help us understand why people ...
Source: Better Health - October 20, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Dr. Val Jones Tags: Health Tips Opinion Acetaminophen How To Treat Pain Ibuprofen OTC OTC Pain Medicines Personalized Medicine Side Effects Which Pain Medicine Is Best Source Type: blogs
What medications have you been able to stop on the Wheat Belly lifestyle?
I posed this question on the Wheat Belly Facebook page recently and received an overwhelming response. Here, I share a partial list of the responses: medications people have been able to stop by following the Wheat Belly lifestyle.
Just take a look at this incredible list: these represent medications prescribed by doctors to, in effect, “treat” the consequences of consuming wheat and grains. They prescribe drugs to treat the inflammation, swelling, skin rashes, gastrointestinal irritation, high blood sugars, airway allergy, and other abnormal effects all caused by wheat and grains.
The list includes anti-inf...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - October 6, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle asthma cholesterol diabetes drugs gluten grains hypertension prescription medication reflux Source Type: blogs
No good options for chronic pain
In some not so good news, the FDA has substantially strengthened its warning on the risk of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, NSAIDS. Although aspirin is literally a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, and has overlapping mechanisms of action with these drugs, it is not formally classified as an NSAID, basically because the term is designed to exclude it, as I will explain.NSAIDS include ibuprofen, naproxen, and celecoxib, which was at one time heavily advertised based on safety claims. These are widely used by people with osteoarthritis and other chronic pain conditions. The problem, as the FDA now concludes, is that th...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 14, 2015 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Emotions and Memories
I couldn’t sleep last night.
I have no idea why. I played tennis for over an hour in the late afternoon’s sweltering heat, but it felt good. I had a good dinner; not too much, not too late. I even remembered to take some naproxen before I went to bed to combat the beginning stiffness.
But then I just couldn’t get to sleep.
My mind wasn’t racing exactly. I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular. I just wasn’t the least bit sleepy. I thought I felt my heart pounding. Tachycardia? Afib? I checked my pulse; 72 and regular. No pain; breathing was fine. I did have a little tremor though. No...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - June 17, 2015 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Family/Personal Source Type: blogs
Test your medicine knowledge: 28-year-old man with recurrent headaches
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 28-year-old man is evaluated for a 5-year history of recurrent headache that occurs several times per month and lasts 12 to 24 hours. He describes the headache as a bilateral frontal pressure associated with nasal congestion and sensitivity to light, sound, and smell. The pain is generally moderate in intensity but worsens when he bends forward or exercises and has caused him to miss 3 days of work recently. He has no nausea or visual or neurologic symptoms. The patient has a history of nonseasonal allergic rh...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 13, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: mksap Tags: Conditions Neurology Source Type: blogs
District Court Dismisses Chicago's Painkiller Marketing Lawsuit Against Four of Five Opioid Manufacturers; Purdue Pharma Still on the Hook
District Court Judge Jorge Alonso of the Northern District of Illinois recently dismissed the City of Chicago’s lawsuit against four out of five pharmaceutical manufacturers that the city accused of marketing opioids in violation of Illinois’ consumer fraud laws and for causing doctors and pharmacies to submit, and the city to pay, claims that were false. Judge Alonso found the majority of allegations lacked the necessary specificity needed for a successful case. For example, while the City alleged fraudulent marketing schemes in fairly good detail, the complaint failed to mention the names of Chicago doctors or consum...
Source: Policy and Medicine - May 13, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Wheat Belly and inflammation
Sophia shared this enlightening and wonderful story of relief from inflammation and half a dozen anti-inflammatory drugs by eliminating the cause, grains:
“Morning from Berkshire, UK. This is me now [on the right], 3 and a half months into Wheat Belly. No drugs, no sarcoidosis, no osteoarthritis, no gastric spams, no joint inflammation, no brain fog, no redness of skin. Still ongoing disc problems but decided to wean myself off of all drugs and manage the pain with exercise, yoga, cycling and then rest.
“By drugs: omeprozole, naproxen, gabapentin, tramadol, diazepam, prednisolone, gastric drugs.
“I have l...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - April 15, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Success Stories acid reflux gluten grains iinflammation joint pain sarcoidosis Source Type: blogs
Knee Arthritis Treatments Ranked By Relative Effectiveness
In conclusion, the elephant in the room is that weight loss and exercise are still the very best treatments for knee osteoarthritis. Check out the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery’s recent list of evidence-based recommendations for the treatment of knee arthritis for more information about the full spectrum of treatment options. (Source: Better Health)
Source: Better Health - January 5, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Dr. Val Jones Tags: Health Tips Research Acetaminophen Annals Of Internal Medicine Celecoxib Comparative Effectiveness Corticosteroids Diclofenac hyaluronic acid Ibuprofen Knee OA Osteoarthritis What Works For Knee Pain? Source Type: blogs
MKSAP: 30-year-old woman with episodic migraine
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 30-year-old woman is evaluated for episodic migraine without aura that first presented in high school and has persisted into the third trimester of her current pregnancy. The headache attacks occur two to four times monthly and last 12 to 24 hours. She experiences moderately severe pain, significant nausea, no vomiting, and pronounced photophobia with most of the attacks. Her only medication is prenatal vitamins.
Physical examination findings, including vital signs, are normal.
Which of the following is the mo...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 18, 2014 Category: Journals (General) Authors: mksap Tags: Conditions Neurology OB/GYN Source Type: blogs
Research and Reviews in the Fastlane 045
Welcome to the 45th edition of Research and Reviews in the Fastlane. R&R in the Fastlane is a free resource that harnesses the power of social media to allow some of the best and brightest emergency medicine and critical care clinicians from all over the world tell us what they think is worth reading from the published literature.
This edition contains 10 recommended reads. The R&R Editorial Team includes Jeremy Fried, Nudrat Rashid, Soren Rudolph, Anand Swaminathan and, of course, Chris Nickson. Find more R&R in the Fastlane reviews in the R&R Archive, read more about the R&R project or check out the f...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - August 25, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Anand Swaminathan Tags: Clinical Research Emergency Medicine Intensive Care R&R in the FASTLANE critical care Education literature recommendations Research and Review Source Type: blogs
The Role Of Black Box Warnings In Safe Prescribing Practices
TweetNote: In addition to Lara Maggs, Aaron Kesselheim also coauthored this post.
In the Health Affairs article, “Era of Faster Drug Approval Has Also Seen Increased Black-Box Warnings and Market Withdrawals,” published in the August issue, Cassie Frank and coauthors compare the number of approved prescription drugs that received black-box warnings or were withdrawn from the market for safety-related reasons prior to the 1992 Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) with black-box warnings and safety-related withdrawals in the post-PDUFA era.
PDUFA for the first time authorized FDA to collect user fees from brand-name...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 20, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Lara Maggs and Aaron Kesselheim Tags: All Categories Bioethics Patient Safety Pharma Policy Public Health Source Type: blogs
Research and Reviews in the Fastlane 037
Conclusion: Use of an age-adjusted d-dimer threshold reduces imaging among patients age <50 years with a Revised Geneva Score ≤ 10. While the adoption of an age-adjusted d-dimer threshold is probably safe, the confidence intervals surrounding the additional 1.5% of PE that was missed using an age-adjusted threshold necessitate a prospective study before this practice can be adopted into routine clinical care.
Recommended by: Salim R. Rezaie, Jeremy Fried
Read More: The Adventure of the Golden Standard (Rory Spiegel)
Resuscitation
Wik L et al. Manual vs. integrated automatic load-distributing band CPR with equal ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 2, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Nudrat Rashid Tags: Anaesthetics Cardiology Emergency Medicine Featured General Surgery Health Infectious Disease Intensive Care Neurology Neurosurgery Radiology Resuscitation Trauma critical care literature R&R in the FASTLANE recommendations Source Type: blogs
Weight Watchers no more after 37 years
Carol posted this interesting comment about her weight loss and health success experienced after reading Wheat Belly:
“I have been mesmerized by the book. Being a lifetime member of Weight Watchers since the age of 21 (now 58), I am amazed at how I feel and the weight lost.
“I have also suffered from severe scoliosis all of my life and have been on prescription naproxen for since 1987. Since I eliminated the wheat I have not taken any meds, I’ve lost my sweet and salty cravings that often consumed me. Now, with spring in the air, I have not had the sneezing and itchy eyes that I’ve suffered with in the pas...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - April 12, 2014 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Weight loss Wheat-elimination success stories Source Type: blogs
Reuters Exclusive: Bayer, Novartis, others eye Merck's consumer health
unit - sources
By Olivia Oran, Soyoung Kim and Anjuli DaviesNEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - A handful of consumer and healthcare companies including Bayer AG and Novartis are exploring a deal for Merck & Co Inc's consumer healthcare business, as they seek to gain scale in a fragmented industry, according to several people familiar with the matter.Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC and Procter & Gamble Co are also among the parties that have held discussions with Merck about buying the unit, best known for Coppertone sunscreen and Claritin allergy medicine, the sources said this week.The Merck business, which also includes Dr. Scholl's ...
Source: PharmaGossip - February 20, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
