Chronic Pain

WASHINGTON — Nearly a third of Americans experience long-lasting pain — the kind that lingers for weeks to months — and too often feel stigma rather than relief from a health care system poorly prepared to treat them, the Institute of Medicine said yesterday. The staggering tab: Chronic pain is costing the nation at least $558 billion a year in medical bills, sick days, and lost productivity, the report found. That’s more than the cost of heart disease, the number one killer.

Harvard School of Dental Medicine has been chosen by the National Institutes of Health as one of 11 schools to create training material for diagnosing and treating pain. "Virtually all health professionals are called upon to help patients suffering from pain," NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins said in a press release . "These new centers will translate current research findings about pain management to fill what have been recognized as gaps in curricula so clinicians in all fields can work with their patients to make better and safer choices about pain treatment.

Q . What causes irritable bowel syndrome and how do you know if you have it? A . Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is very common — it’s generally estimated that up to 20 percent of the population has complaints that meet the criteria for IBS. It’s less a specific disease than a set of symptoms: abdominal pain or discomfort that’s accompanied by either constipation or diarrhea, or both in alternation. People with IBS usually experience some kind of pain in their lower abdomen, but the type of pain and its location can vary.

Some of the world's largest drugmakers will face an uphill battle next week in their bid to revive a class of experimental pain drugs that have been sidelined by safety concerns for nearly two years. The Food and Drug Administration says there is a clear association between the nerve-blocking medications and reports of joint failure and bone deterioration that led the agency to halt studies of the drugs in 2010. However, the agency also notes that those side effects were less common when the drugs were used at lower doses, potentially leaving the door open for future use. The agency...

Morphine and similar powerful painkillers are sometimes prescribed to recent war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress along with physical pain, and the consequences can be tragic, a government study suggests. These vets are at high risk for drug and alcohol abuse, but they're two times more likely to get prescriptions for addictive painkillers than vets with only physical pain, according to the study, billed as the first national examination of the problem. Iraq and Afghanistan vets with PTSD who already had substance abuse problems were four times more likely to get these...

You don’t have to be a masochist to derive a great deal of pleasure from Melanie Thernstrom’s “The Pain Chronicles.’’ An ingenious mix of science, history, investigative journalism, and memoir, Thernstrom’s book attempts (mostly successfully) to pin down that mercurial moving target — physical pain, particularly chronic pain. If you’ve ever sat in a doctor’s office and tried to explain how, where, and when something hurts, you have some notion of the energy, precision, and diligence necessary to produce this masterful overview of the subject.

Q. Do topical creams and gels help with muscle pain? A. Traditional muscle rubs containing salicylate - an aspirin-like compound - do not help much, according to a recent review by British researchers for the Cochrane Collaboration, an international nonprofit that provides up-to-date information on health care research. But American doctors say that newer topical NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) containing diclofenac may be more effective. In the Cochrane review, researchers from the University of Oxford looked at seven...

Jazz Melody Gardot My One and Only Thril VERVE ESSENTIAL "My One and Only Thrill" Melody Gardot's 2008 debut was swell: an understated collection of savvy jazz-pop packed with Norah Jones-caliber crossover appeal. But the follow-up is a stunner, the work of an artist who over the course of a couple of years has made great leaps as a composer and a lyricist. Gardot is a singer-songwriter who works in the jazz idiom, but where "Worrisome Heart" was an alluring fusion of folk, blues, pop, and jazz, the new album falls firmly into the latter camp.

WASHINGTON - Improper use of patches that emit the painkiller fentanyl is still killing people, the government said yesterday - its second warning in two years about the powerful narcotic. Some of the deaths came after doctors prescribed the patches to the wrong patients, the Food and Drug Administration said. The drug is only for chronic pain in people used to narcotics, such as cancer patients, and can cause trouble breathing in people new to this family of "opioid" painkillers.

Harvard School of Dental Medicine has been chosen by the National Institutes of Health as one of 11 schools to create training material for diagnosing and treating pain. "Virtually all health professionals are called upon to help patients suffering from pain," NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins said in a press release . "These new centers will translate current research findings about pain management to fill what have been recognized as gaps in curricula so clinicians in all fields can work with their patients to make better and...

Morphine and similar powerful painkillers are sometimes prescribed to recent war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress along with physical pain, and the consequences can be tragic, a government study suggests. These vets are at high risk for drug and alcohol abuse, but they're two times more likely to get prescriptions for addictive painkillers than vets with only physical pain, according to the study, billed as the first national examination of the problem. Iraq and Afghanistan vets with PTSD who already had substance abuse problems were four times more likely to get these...

A Norton woman who was accidentally shot by an off-duty state trooper who was hunting on New Year's Eve is struggling to fight infection and not recovering as quickly as hoped, her husband said in an interview yesterday. Cheryl Blair, 66, was walking her dogs in the woods behind her home when a hunter shot her, later saying he had mistaken the tail on one of her golden retrievers for a deer's tail. Trooper John Bergeron, 50, who lives down the street, fired the single shot from a rifle and the .50-caliber lead ball tore through Blair's side.

Q. A federal panel released a report earlier this summer saying that pain costs the United States $635 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity at work. A. About one in five adults has chronic pain. [It is] a huge burden on the health of society. It's now becoming recognized at the highest levels of organized medicine that [pain] is a problem. Patients' voices are being heard. Q. You said that pain had largely been overlooked by the medical establishment because it is a subjective experience and was therefore hard to count or see through a microscope.

Most people who suffer a sudden cardiac death never know they are at risk. That’s especially true of women. A study led by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that a healthy lifestyle could help women avoid sudden cardiac death, even if they are never diagnosed with the associated coronary heart disease. In a 26-year study of more than 81,000 US nurses, who were surveyed every two to four years, women who maintained a body mass index of less than 25, did not smoke, exercised at least 30 minutes per day, and ate a Mediterranean-style diet heavy on...

WASHINGTON — Nearly a third of Americans experience long-lasting pain — the kind that lingers for weeks to months — and too often feel stigma rather than relief from a health care system poorly prepared to treat them, the Institute of Medicine said yesterday. The staggering tab: Chronic pain is costing the nation at least $558 billion a year in medical bills, sick days, and lost productivity, the report found. That’s more than the cost of heart disease, the number one killer.

Nearly a third of Americans experience long-lasting pain — the kind that lingers for weeks to months — and too often feel stigma rather than relief from a health care system poorly prepared to treat them, the Institute of Medicine said Wednesday. The staggering tab: Chronic pain is costing the nation at least $558 billion a year in medical bills, sick days and lost productivity, the report found. That’s more than the cost of heart disease, the No. 1 killer. All kinds of ailments can trigger lingering pain, from arthritis to cancer, spine problems to digestive...

I never knew such pain existed. This past spring, my neck suddenly went bonkers - a long-lurking arthritic problem probably exacerbated by hunching over my new laptop. On a subjective scale of 1 to 10 (there is no objective way to measure pain), the slightest wrong move, such as turning my head too fast or picking something up from the floor, would send my pain zooming from zero to a sobbing, gasping, tears-pouring-down-the-face 10. During these episodes, which happened many times a day for months, it became impossible to talk, and impossible not to yell.

Some of the world's largest drugmakers will face an uphill battle next week in their bid to revive a class of experimental pain drugs that have been sidelined by safety concerns for nearly two years. The Food and Drug Administration says there is a clear association between the nerve-blocking medications and reports of joint failure and bone deterioration that led the agency to halt studies of the drugs in 2010. However, the agency also notes that those side effects were less common when the drugs were used at lower doses, potentially leaving the door open for future use....

Clarence Clemons, the larger-than-life saxophone player for the E Street Band who was one of the key influences in Bruce Springsteen’s life and music through four decades, has died. He was 69. Clemons died Saturday night after being hospitalized about a week ago following a stroke at his home in Singer Island, Fla. Springsteen acknowledged the dire situation earlier this week, but said then he was hopeful. He called the loss “immeasurable.’’ “We are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly 40 years,’’ Springsteen...

Q . What causes irritable bowel syndrome and how do you know if you have it? A . Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is very common — it’s generally estimated that up to 20 percent of the population has complaints that meet the criteria for IBS. It’s less a specific disease than a set of symptoms: abdominal pain or discomfort that’s accompanied by either constipation or diarrhea, or both in alternation. People with IBS usually experience some kind of pain in their lower abdomen, but the type of pain and its...