Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain
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To investigate and characterize the incidence of needlestick injuries (NSI) in a sample of practicing pain medicine physicians, with the ultimate goal of aiding to prevent these injuries by raising awareness of their prevalence. ⋯ This study characterizes NSIs in a population of pain medicine physicians. These data warrant caution and will hopefully raise awareness amongst providers.
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Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has been proven to be an effective treatment for patients suffering from intractable chronic neuropathic pain. Recent advances in the field include the utilization of programs that multiplex various signals to target different neural structures in the dorsal spinal cord associated with the painful area. Preclinical studies have been fundamental in understanding the mechanism by which this differential target multiplexed programming (DTMP) SCS approach works. Transcriptomic- and proteomic-based studies demonstrated that DTMP can modulate expression levels of genes and proteins involved in pain-related processes that have been affected by a neuropathic pain model. This work studied the effect of the intensity of DTMP signals on mechanical hypersensitivity and cell-specific transcriptomes. ⋯ DTMP when applied at either 40% MT or 70% MT provided similar reduction of pain-like behavior in rats and similar effects in neuron- and glia-specific transcriptomes.
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Whether ultrasound-guided stellate ganglion block (SGB) is a valuable therapeutic option for the treatment of patients with chronic migraine (CM) is worth exploring. If SGB is proven to be effective for CM, the identification of potential predictors for the effectiveness of SGB warrants further investigation. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness and safety of SGB in patients with CM and to explore the predictive factors for its treatment effectiveness. ⋯ Ultrasound-guided SGB was an effective and safe treatment for CM patients. The majority of responsive patients with CM benefited from repeated SGBs. CM patients who needed repeated SGBs may obtain good and sustained analgesic effect after receiving a greater number of SGBs. Patients without comorbidities such as anxiety or depression were more likely to benefit from SGB treatments.
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The objective of the study was to determine the associations of depression and anxiety with chronic pain among U.S. adults. ⋯ The presence of chronic pain in adults associated with significantly higher severity scores for both anxiety and depression as measured by validated surveys in a nationally representative sample. The same is true for the association between chronic pain and an adult taking medication for depression and/or anxiety. These data highlight the impact of chronic pain has on psychological well-being within the general population.