New Device Helps Ease Difficulties of Drug Withdrawl

When someone is dependent on opioids, it's difficult to stop the drug and try a new form of treatment for a number of reasons:

1) There may be a fear that a different form of treatment will not work as well as current treatment.

2) Withdrawal from opioids can be a very uncomfortable process. This can include muscle aches, restlessness, anxiety, tearing of the eyes, sweating, insomnia, abdominal issues (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping), racing heart, and hypertension. Knowing this in advance must surely be a deterrent to stopping these drugs!

3) The euphoria that some people experience when taking opioids will no longer be a part of life.

Some addiction medicine specialists use prescription drugs such as Subutex or Suboxone to treat patients who have used or abused opioids and need to stop. The problem here is that these drugs will block the withdrawal symptoms but that's all. The dependency problem is still there underneath it all. When I worked as a hospital pharmacist I remember several young pregnant women who were being treated with these drugs due to dependency. When their babies were born, guess what? The babies were born addicted.

Now we hear of a new product...a device that can be placed the behind the ear to ease opioid withdrawal symptoms. Known as the Neuro-Stim Bridge, this half dollar sized product sends electrical signals to the brain to block the pain of detox. For more information about this idea, here is a link to a story about an Indiana opiate treatment center who recently began using this therapy. At the time of the story, 37 patients used the device to successfully free themselves from opiate dependency...and more success stories are on the way!

Sources: Flickr; Indystar.com; Healthline.com

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Living with Chronic pain hits the big screen!

Been to the movies lately? Jennifer Aniston is on the big screen in a recent release titled "Cake." Her character, Claire is a victim of chronic pain...she belongs to a support group, where all of the members are coming to terms with the suicide of one of their members. Of course, she also takes pain medication and addiction is another of her problems...and of course there's more! I guess I am writing this post just to bring readers' attention to the fact that Hollywood has become aware of the crisis that is chronic pain. This movie is a testament to that. People that don't have to live with this kind of pain don't fully understand the whole story. Maybe this movie will shed some light on the issues. Here is the official trailer for the movie: Sources: prweb;NorthJersey.com;YouTube

Effectiveness Of Ozone Injections Is No Longer Up In The Air

Most of us know someone who has osteoarthritis, if we don't have it ourselves. Joint replacement surgery is a pretty common remedy when the joint becomes severely damaged and the patient is in a lot of pain. With risk of complications from such a surgery, perhaps an alternative treatment should be tried first. One such remedy is the injection of a synthetic version of collagen(e.g. Synvisc®) into the affected joint. This procedure restores the cushioning to a joint that has degenerated over the years. It can diminish the pain substantially and help put off joint replacement surgery for months to years. The biggest drawback is that these products are expensive. GoodRX , a web site that can be used to estimate the cost of medications, estimates the cost of these products to be over $1,000 each. Here's another example--and I am not sure how widely accepted this protocol has become since study authors introduced it in November 2015. Are you r...

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Everyday pain management ideas

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