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A study led by Vinod Dasa, MD reports that a novel surgical pain management strategy following total knee arthroplasty (TKA), or total knee replacement, provided pain relief without opioids. The researchers also found that changing prescriptions for opioids at discharge from automatic to upon request dramatically decreased opioid use. "About 70% of opioid-naïve patients needed only Tylenol and anti-inflammatory medications to manage their pain," notes Dr. Dasa. "Opioid use in health care is improving but remains difficult to manage. Surgical pain was long thought to be unavoidable, requiring a large amount of pain medications. Creating innovative strategies to enhance surgical...

A Tennessee healthcare executive was sentenced to 42 months in prison followed by one year of supervised release today for his role in an approximately $4 million kickback scheme.Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran of the Middle District of Tennessee, Special Agent in Charge Derrick Jackson of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s (HHS-OIG) Atlanta Region, Special Agent in Charge John F. Khin of the U.S. Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s (DCIS) Southeast Field Office, and Director David Rausch of the Tennessee...

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. — Thirty-seven hospitals in two states have filed a lawsuit in Marshall County against numerous opioid manufacturers, distributors, and several individuals. Stephen Farmer of law firm Farmer, Cline, and Campbell announced the suit, calling it the first of its kind in the United States, Tuesday afternoon. The complaint filed in court Tuesday claims evidence of a criminal conspiracy that has devastated West Virginia and “tens of thousands of its families.” West Virginia University Hospitals, United Hospital Center, and Charleston Area Medical Center Health System are among three of the largest hospitals to attach their name to the suit...

I've never smoked pot and I don't like potheads. But THIS made even me angry. Nolan Sousley from Bolivar, Missouri has Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer --he's on his way to check out for good. Yet the cops barge in and toss his whole hospital room anyway. And the circumstances didn't prevent the police from humiliating him, either. You'd think he was maybe a dealer in a pimp outfit. Sousley ad a yuge bong, right? Nope. He playing some Hendrix and seen rolling some joints, right? Nope. He has some **pills that contain THC**. Yeah, for his PAIN. Cuz they're less...

LAS VEGAS — Authorities in Nevada say Art Bell, a syndicated radio host best known for nightly shows in the 1990s about paranormal themes and conspiracy theories, died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly posted a brief Facebook announcement on Wednesday saying an autopsy determined the 72-year-old Bell died of "multiple drug intoxication from his own lawfully prescribed prescriptions." Coroner John Fudenberg in Las Vegas says Bell had the painkillers..

The drug, which is legal for medical use in the majority of US states, is mainly prescribed to ease pain. But this new research conducted in Colorado - which was the first state to legalize - suggests that short-term pain relief could weaken the body's resilience to pain over time. The researchers, from the Swedish Medical Center, Colorado, analyzed around 260 people who were involved in minor vehicle accidents and admitted to trauma centers. Of these, 54 tested positive for recent marijuana use while 16 claimed they used the drug more or less every day.

On May 1, Jason Bigelow’s body was discovered in an abandoned house near High Point. He had been missing from his Asheboro home for a week, and while the autopsy results are still pending, his wife, Anna, has no doubt what the cause of death was. On April 30, the day before he was found, she posted this on Facebook in one angry, anguished burst: “My husband is missing and no one has heard from him in 6 days. Even in his darkest of times he would have not gone that long without communication. It’s hard to know what...

Researchers from the University of Texas have discovered what they say is a powerful painkiller that acts on a previously unknown pain pathway. The synthetic compound, known as UKH-1114, effectively relieves neuropathic pain in injured mice, but it works at a much lower dose, with a longer duration of action. If the researchers can demonstrate that the drug is safe, effective and nonaddictive in humans – a process that can take years – the discovery could address one of today’s biggest public health challenges: the opioid crisis. Opioids are addictive and users quickly develop a tolerance for the drugs, requiring...

OxyContin is a dying business in America. With the nation in the grip of an opioid epidemic that has claimed more than 200,000 lives, the U.S. medical establishment is turning away from painkillers. Top health officials are discouraging primary-care doctors from prescribing them for chronic pain, saying there is no proof that they work long-term and substantial evidence that they put patients at risk. Prescriptions for OxyContin have fallen nearly 40 percent since 2010, meaning billions of dollars in lost revenue for its Connecticut manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. So the company's owners, the Sackler family, adopted a new strategy: Put the...

Imagine you are an editorial writer of the New York Times (a stretch to be sure, but stay with us). Your biggest problem in the Age of Obama has to be that despite all the Democrats’ claims to have steered us into a recovery, jobs are lacking. Supposedly the unemployment rate has been brought down to 5%. But that’s because the job participation rate is at its lowest point in decades as millions of Americans are still too discouraged to look for work. How do you work around this pesky problem? Dang, if the Times hasn’t come up with its...

Big pharma is spending millions to fight limits on opioids like OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl The pharmaceutical industry has spent more than $880 million over the past decade to fight laws that would limit the availability of powerful opiods such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl in the United States, according to an investigation by the Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity published Sunday. Often, these lobbying expenditures are funneled through groups like the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and other advocacy groups that represent the interests of patients with terminal cancer or chronic pain, whose conditions can...

New Jersey hospital emergency room becomes first in U.S. to end use of opioid painkillers PATERSON, N.J. -- St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center announced it has become the first hospital in the country to implement a program that will manage patients' pain in the emergency room without the use of opioid painkillers. Painkillers most frequently used in the emergency room in the past were oxycodone, vicodin and percocet, according to Dr. Mark Rosenberg, the Emergency Department chair. “Our job here together is to look at the whole equation and understand how we can stop people from going from a prescription,...

NATURE TO THE RESCUE - AGAINThe deadly sea snail venom that will take away your pain By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor Times Online A NEW painkiller based on the venom of a sea snail will be available in Britain from today. Prialt, or ziconotide, is the result of more than 20 years’ research by a scientist born in the Philippines, Baldomera Olivera, who is a professor at the University of Utah. It is 1,000 times more potent than morphine but, unlike that drug, is not addictive. It is aimed at people suffering from severe, chronic pain who would normally...

Author Insights: Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Reduce Opioid Deaths BY BRIDGET M. KUEHN on AUGUST 26, 2014 Marcus A. Bachhuber, MD, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues found that states that legalize marijuana experience lower rates of opioid deaths, on average, compared with states that don’t allow medical marijuana. Image: University of Pennsylvania Opioid-overdose deaths increased in states across the country between 1999 and 2010, but states that legalized medical marijuana saw less-steep increases than those without, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week. Growing use...

Scientists have created powerful painkillers from the venom of snails, it has been revealed. The substances, based on a tiny protein found in cone snails’ venom, could be more effective than morphine. They may one day lead to the development of a drug to treat severe and chronic nerve pain. …

Researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a brand new class of drugs to treat chronic pain caused by inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and back pain without numbing the whole body. The team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and working at UCL (University College London), have shown for the first time that genes involved in chronic pain are regulated by molecules inside cells called small RNAs. This mechanism is so different from what has already been discovered about the biology underpinning pain that it could be the Achilles heel of chronic inflammatory...

I was just wondering if anyone else is dealing with endometriosis and/or pcos. I've been looking for support groups elsewhere, but most seem to be (excusing the expression) dying out in popularity. I'm not a new sufferer, but am newly diagnosed wih stage IV endo...and would love to connect with others fighting the same fight. For those others to be FReepers would be even better!

Electromagnetic pulses significantly decrease pain and inflammation associated with osteoarthritis of the knee, according to Henry Ford Hospital researchers. In the double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled study, 34 patients used a portable battery-operated device that emits a low-intensity pulsating electromagnetic frequency and experienced more than 40 percent pain relief on their first day. "Our results show pulsed electromagnetic fields caused a significant decrease in pain" says Fred Nelson, M.D., associate program director for research and director of the Osteoarthritis Center, Department of Orthopaedics, Henry Ford Hospital. Dr. Nelson will present the results this week at the Orthopaedic Research Society's annual meeting in...

[snip] These comments left the impression that Favre had become addicted to painkillers. This was true, yet it probably did not represent the entire truth. The truth, his father Irvin says, was that Brett had developed an addiction to the drug Vicodin, a narcotic analgesic. But the truth also included the notion, the elder Favre acknowledges, that a problem with alcohol abuse could exist. [snip] What, after all, is the first phrase that comes to mind when somebody mentions Brett Favre? "He's a gamer." Right. How many times have you seen it? Favre is questionable, doubtful, totally iffy, completely banged...

Here is video from Fox and Friends this morning where they talked about news that Rush Limbaugh was taken to the hospital last night in Hawaii. a Hawaii TV station reports that when paramedics arrived at Rush's hotel yesterday, he told them he was taking a medication for "back pain" that may have contributed to the chest pains he was having. He is reportedly "resting comfortably" in the hospital. . . . (VIDEO)