Articles related to Pain Medicine

The review, which we covered previously, concluded that “oral, synthetic cannabis products with high THC-to-CBD ratios and sublingual, extracted cannabis products with comparable THC-to-CBD ratios may be associated with short-term improvements in chronic pain and increased risk for dizziness and sedation.”

The story of “Dr. H,” an up-and-coming physician who was charged with 14 counts of murder in June 2019 after prescribing patients extremely high doses of fentanyl. The prosecution said Dr. H had intended to hasten or cause the deaths of the 14 patients, and it did not matter whether they were severely ill or close to dying. The defense argued the physician was merely relieving the patients’ suffering and that they died from their underlying diseases or being removed from ventilators. Who did the jury agree with?

The editorialists noted that, because of the slow pace of clinical trials, their findings will likely be the best available evidence for some time: “While we await better evidence, we believe that clinicians should meet patients with chronic pain ‘where they are.’ Conventional analgesic medications are effective only in a subset of persons…clinicians can compassionately witness, record, and offer guidance to help patients with chronic pain use cannabis wisely.”

In this cross-sectional study of 586 probands and 698 first-degree relatives, cannabis use disorder and bipolar disorder II in probands were associated with an independent increase in risk of cannabis use disorder in relatives; bipolar disorder I and major depressive disorder in probands were not significantly associated with cannabis use disorder in relatives. The risk of cannabis use disorder was highest among relatives with both familial and individual history of bipolar disorder II.

As use of gabapentin in the United States has been steadily increasing in recent years, researchers from the CDC have found that, among the 62,652 overdose deaths that occurred between 2019 and 2020, 58,362 of these cases had documented toxicology results.

“The guideline was never intended to set a standard of care in the treatment of pain, much less was it intended to serve as a means to criminally prosecute clinicians. While the new guideline is a substantial improvement, harm from the 2016 guideline will not be easily erased and will require more specific wording than is currently present.” (Requires free registration / login)