The Future of 3D Printing Drugs In Pharmacies Is Closer Than You Think
3D printing drugs is not a phantasy anymore. Unbelievable shapes and any kind of drug can be fabricated with the groundbreaking technology. The UK biotech company, FabRx believes it could even appear as a regular technique in hospitals and pharmacies for creating personalized drugs in specific doses within 5-10 years.
Print out starfish-shaped drugs for your child at home
Somewhere in the 2030s: Annie was called by the teacher of her daughter that she had a high fever and went with her to the school doctor. He told the girl that she had the flu, and it would be better for her to go home. He also prescribed some pills; and...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 4, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: 3D Printing in Medicine Future of Medicine Future of Pharma 3d printed drugs GC1 Healthcare Innovation personalized drugs Personalized medicine pharmacies Source Type: blogs
Treating pain after opioid addiction: A personal story
Follow me on Twitter @Peter_Grinspoon
As a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), I am profoundly grateful for my 10 years in recovery from opiate addiction. As detailed in my memoir Free Refills, I fell into an all too common trap for physicians, succumbing to stress and ready access to medications, and became utterly and completely addicted to the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin. After an unspeakably stressful visit in my office by the State Police and the DEA, three felony charges, being fingerprinted, two years of probation, 90 days in rehab, and losing my medical license for three years, I fi...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 7, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Peter Grinspoon, M.D. Tags: Addiction Drugs and Supplements Managing your health care Pain Management Source Type: blogs
If you have low back pain try these steps first
Low back pain, the scourge of mankind: it is the second leading cause of disability here in the United States, and the fourth worldwide. It’s also one of the top five medical problems for which people see doctors. Almost every day that I see patients, I see someone with back pain. It’s one of the top reasons for lost wages due to missed work, as well as for healthcare dollars spent, hence, a very expensive problem.
Looking at two kinds of back pain
Let’s talk about the most common forms of back pain: acute (which lasts less than four weeks) and subacute (which lasts four to 12 weeks). Most of these cases (approximate...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 3, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Monique Tello, MD, MPH Tags: Back Pain Managing your health care Pain Management Source Type: blogs
Long-term use of opioids may depend on the doctor who prescribes them
You may have heard of the phrase “primum non nocere” — the Latin phrase that doctors are supposed to follow that instructs them to “first, do no harm.” Doctors also have an important ethical obligation to alleviate pain. But what happens when these two mandates collide? That, unfortunately, is the case with opioid pain relievers: powerful medicines like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and hydromorphone. These medications are potent pain relievers, but this relief comes at a serious, and sometimes deadly, cost.
The United States is now in the era of an “opioid epidemic” in which deaths from opi...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 27, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Scott Weiner, M.D. Tags: Addiction Drugs and Supplements Pain Management Source Type: blogs
21st Century Scourge
The CDC recently put out apaperin their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that studied the likelihood of long term opiate use after initial treatment with an opioid medication for acute pain. The results, for me as a regular prescriber of opioid medications, were fairly shocking. The study randomly reviewed 10% of patient records from the Lifelink database over the time period of 2006-2015. If a patient was given a prescription for an opioid for longer than 10 days, there was a 1 in 5 chance that patient would be a regular opiate user one year later. That's just staggering.Few are unaware of ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - March 25, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
Hypotension due to IV acetaminophen
(Source: Notes from Dr. RW)
Source: Notes from Dr. RW - March 22, 2017 Category: Internal Medicine Tags: critical care pharmacology Source Type: blogs
Some medications don ’ t help back pain as much as we thought
This study found that NSAIDs don’t work as well for back pain as many people think. However, it is not true (as stated by some headlines about this study) that NSAIDs were not effective at all. Some people did improve with these medications. The trick is figuring out in advance who is most likely to get better with NSAID therapy. We can’t yet do that very well.
Here’s my suggestion: if you take an NSAID for spinal pain (or just about any other pain), keep track of how you’re feeling. A “pain diary” is one way to do this. If you aren’t clearly better in a week or two, talk to your doctor about adjusting the do...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Back Pain Drugs and Supplements Pain Management Source Type: blogs
A Rare Intervention for an Unusual Exposure
Children like to put things in their mouth, ears, nose, and eyes. A 9-year-old boy superglued his right eye shut and came to our pediatric emergency department. He thought the glue was an over-the-counter eye lubricant and filled his entire eye with the glue.Overdoses and poisonings are a dangerous threat to children. In fact, unintentional poison overdose or ingestion has continued to claim hundreds of children's lives. More than 300 children in the United States ages 0 to 19 are seen at EDs for poisoning and two of them die each year. (CDC. April 28, 2016; http://bit.ly/2kjVmhO.)Not all toxic exposures are i...
Source: The Procedural Pause - March 1, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
A Rare Intervention for an Unusual Exposure
Children like to put things in their mouth, ears, nose, and eyes. A 9-year-old boy superglued his right eye shut and came to our pediatric emergency department. He thought the glue was an over-the-counter eye lubricant and filled his entire eye with the glue.Overdoses and poisonings are a dangerous threat to children. In fact, unintentional poison overdose or ingestion has continued to claim hundreds of children's lives. More than 300 children in the United States ages 0 to 19 are seen at EDs for poisoning and two of them die each day. (CDC. April 28, 2016;
http://bit.ly/2kjVmhO.)Not all toxic exposures a...
Source: The Procedural Pause - March 1, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
A primary care doctor delves into the opioid epidemic
Our nephew Christopher died of a heroin overdose in October 2013.1 It had started with pain pills and experimentation, and was fueled by deep grief.2 He was charismatic, lovable, a favorite uncle, and a hero to all the children in his life. His death too young was a huge loss to our family. I have always felt that I didn’t do enough to help prevent it, and perhaps, in a way, even contributed.
Good intentions with unintended consequences
My medical training took me through several big-city hospitals where addiction and its consequences were commonplace. Throughout all of it, great emphasis was placed on recognizing &#...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 20, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Monique Tello, MD, MPH Tags: Addiction Behavioral Health Source Type: blogs
Buprenorphine Overdose After Naltrexone Treatment
Naltrexone induces mu-receptor hypersensitivity. Buprenorphine’s protective ‘ceiling effect’ may not prevent overdose in patients with this ‘reverse tolerance’.
A new patient described his recent history of respiratory failure several days into buprenorphine treatment. He was told by his doctors that he experienced an allergic reaction to Suboxone. The rarity of buprenorphine or naloxone allergy led me to look deeper into his history, and my conclusion differs from what he was told by his last treatment team.
The patient, a man in his mid-50s, has a history of significant opioid use over t...
Source: Suboxone Talk Zone - February 15, 2017 Category: Addiction Authors: Jeffrey Junig MD PhD Tags: Buprenorphine Induction pharmacology receptor actions side effects Suboxone tolerance buprenorphine induction buprenorphine overdose naltrexone treatment Suboxone after vivitrol Suboxone allergy Source Type: blogs
How much are patients to blame for ER overuse?
The U.S. rings the bell on health care spending, and some point fingers at patients themselves.
But why do patients choose the paths they choose? Just about every shift, I and my coworkers shake our heads, and wonder what may be driving our patients’ decisions. Parents who haven’t yet tried a drop of acetaminophen bring kids in at 2 a.m. with fevers. Patients show up with nose bleeds that have already stopped bleeding out in the car. Sprained ankles roll in by ambulance.
ER old timers (I guess me too now) can often be heard saying “when I was a kid there’s no way my parents would’ve taken me in for that.” It’...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 14, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/sam-slishman" rel="tag" > Sam Slishman, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Emergency Source Type: blogs
Drug Wholesalers to Pay $36 Million Over West Virginia Pill Mill Claims
Two prescription drug wholesalers – AmerisourceBergen Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc. – will pay $16 million and $20 million, respectively, to resolve West Virginia’s claims relating to their distribution of controlled substances in the state, according to Governor Earl Ray Tomblin. The settlement – in which neither company admitted to any wrongdoing – is believed to be the largest pharmaceutical settlement in state history, after lawsuits dragged on for more than four years in Boone County Circuit Court and spanned the terms of two attorneys general.
In 2012, McGraw filed lawsuits against Cardinal Health, Ameris...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 12, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
LITFL Review 269
Welcome to the 269th LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest and deliver a bite-sized chunk of FOAM.
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week
Rinaldo Bellomo delivers a mind-blowing talk on glycaemic control in the critically ill. A must listen. [SO]
The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine
Can we use the d-dimer to rule out aortic dissection? First10EM + EMCases feature a deep dive in...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - February 12, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Marjorie Lazoff, MD Tags: Education LITFL review Source Type: blogs
The 4 symptoms that mean your child must stay home from school or daycare
Follow me on Twitter @drClaire
It’s a decision every parent faces regularly: whether or not to keep a sick child home from school.
It would seem like a simple decision. If your child is sick, of course they shouldn’t go to school or daycare. But besides the fact that it’s not practical to keep a child home for every sniffle, keeping a child home can be a real hardship for working parents — and it means that a child is missing out on learning and other activities. So it’s a decision that should be made as wisely as possible.
Sometimes the decision is clear. Your kid looks awful and you can’t imagine sitting them...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 7, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Infectious diseases Parenting Source Type: blogs
