Pain Management

In the first in a series of videos on regulation of hydrocodone combination products, Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, discusses the dramatic increase in the use of opioids in the United States.

Opioid abusers who prefer oxycodone cited the quality of the high as the primary reason behind their choice, while those who prefer hydrocodone were more likely to cite its accessibility, a new study finds.

Our round-up of new prescription products.

A review of guidelines for use of opioid painkillers to treat chronic pain finds that they are in general agreement but are frequently based on limited or low-quality evidence.

Opioid painkillers were given to more than half of nonsurgical US hospital patients, a study finds, with wide variations in prescribing rates among hospitals and notable variations based on region.

Almost 1 in 10 adolescent patients at an emergency department reported misusing opioids or sedatives, and few had a current home prescription for the medication they misused.

In an attempt to stem the abuse of hydrocodone combination products, the agency will recommend that they be reclassified as Schedule II drugs from their current status as Schedule III drugs.

A patient who thought chronic pain meant she would never work again or have a normal family life found relief at the Nebraska Medical Center.

A patient with unyielding pain for a decade learns how to manage her pain at the Mayo Clinic's Pain Rehabilitation Center.

Sherilyn Driscoll, MD, a pediatrics physiatrist at the Mayo Clinic, discusses how treatment of chronic pain in children has changed.

Three years after undergoing bariatric surgery, average daily morphine equivalents for chronic opioid users increased by 18% compared with intake a year before the surgery.

Our round-up of the latest generic products.

Between 2000 and 2010, the rate of opioid prescription increased by 73%, while the portion of patients with a primary symptom or diagnosis of pain was generally stable.

Labels on all extended-release and long-acting opioid analgesics will be amended to ensure they are used only by those who need them and to warn pregnant women of the risk of neonatal narcotic withdrawal syndrome.

The chain's pharmacies stopped filling prescriptions for controlled substances written by 36 physicians it had identified as inappropriate prescribers.

A new report finds that those who used prescription painkillers recreationally were 19 times as likely to begin using heroin as those who did not.

Physicians increasingly treat back pain with narcotics despite a growing number of guidelines recommending that it be treated initially with NSAIDs and acetaminophen.

Patients who fit the criteria of doctor shoppers received an average of 32 prescriptions for opioid painkillers from 10 different doctors in the space of a year, according to the results of a new study.

Of the 50 million people in the United States diagnosed with some form of arthritis, 300,000 are children, whose symptoms are similar to those seen in adults with the condition.

The number of women who died due to overdoses involving opioid pain relievers increased 415% between 1999 and 2010, according to a report from the CDC.

Teri Robert took to the Internet to find information on dealing with her own migraines, but ended up becoming a prolific blogger on the condition and founding an organization to represent migraine patients.

June is Migraine and Headache Awareness Month, which makes it the perfect time to review the stages and treatments of this painful condition that affects some 36 million Americans.

Almost three-quarters of college students say sharing prescription drugs is common among their acquaintances, and less than a fifth say their schools have established programs to deal with the problem.

The agency rejected a request from the painkiller's manufacturer to outlaw generic versions lacking tamper-resistant features just weeks after deciding the opposite way for generic versions of OxyContin.

A review of randomized controlled trials and open-label studies of 6 months or longer finds good evidence that opioid therapy improves pain scores, with weaker evidence for its long-term effect on functional status.