Category: Pain Management

Marijuana will not fix the opioid epidemic

Marijuana has been used for reported medical purposes for thousands of years when the plant had THC content of 0.5 to 3%. The most common reported medical use is for pain. Several states and the District of Columbia have some form of legalized marijuan…

Break the reaction to high pain scores

Pain usually cannot be “treated” like a standard ear infection. Treating patients in pain requires setting realistic expectations, using a variety of approaches, and patience. One patient I treated months ago highlights these points. At 6 a.m., I was r…

A call for the end of routine opioid use after wisdom tooth removal

We are writing as a parent and a dentist to spread a message to parents and dental health care providers across Canada: there are alternatives to prescribing opioids after wisdom tooth removal. Removing wisdom teeth is considered by many as a rite of p…

The patient-doctor relationship: Eroded by the opioid epidemic but essential to overcoming it

The opioid epidemic has swept through communities across the country, and according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse more than 115 people in the U.S. die every day after overdosing on opioids. This crisis is dominating the headlines as physician…

Suboxone for pain makes sense. Why don’t more doctors prescribe it?

Many patients who end up in Suboxone treatment have chronic pain. They were originally prescribed other opiates and ended up addicted to them. Skeptics argue that is just substituting one opiate for another. But that isn’t quite accurate. More on that …

What can politicians do to address the opioid crisis?

I doubt there is anyone living in the U.S. who doesn’t realize we have an opioid crisis here. Politicians debate the solutions to abating the high death rate that comes along with it, however, they fail to acknowledge that there are Americans in pain. …

Market-based approaches solving the opioid epidemic

Mary first took oxycodone after a minor surgery and found she liked it. Returning to her surgeon a month later with vague ongoing pain, she received another prescription. Her primary care provider took over from there — until one day that physician checked a urine drug screen and a prescription monitoring program (PMP) report, only […]

Market-based approaches solving the opioid epidemic

Mary first took oxycodone after a minor surgery and found she liked it. Returning to her surgeon a month later with vague ongoing pain, she received another prescription. Her primary care provider took over from there — until one day that physician checked a urine drug screen and a prescription monitoring program (PMP) report, only […]

Take a close look at the number of opioid pills you’re prescribing

Recently, a generally healthy friend of mine had two small, unrelated surgeries over the course of a few months. For the first, a small operation on his hand, he received a prescription for 30 oxycodone pills. He used one the night after surgery, to make sure pain wouldn’t wake him. Over the next few days […]

Telemedicine should be easy. Here’s why it’s not.

Who was Ryan Haight? Ryan Haight was an 18-year-old honor student from La Mesa, California who died on February 12, 2001, from an overdose of hydrocodone ordered from an online doctor he never saw — and shipped to his home from a rogue online pharmacy during the beginning of the opioid epidemic. The pharmacist, Clayton […]