Tag: pain

  • Dispensing Pain Meds as a Specialty Service

    I have seen many changes happen to pharmacy in the last 24 years. One of the most career-shifting has been the change in the reimbursement model that has forced pharmacy to revisit how it makes money to remain afloat while continuing the important work of patient care. The traditional work I am referring to is not…

  • Going forward with the opioid crisis as a health practitioner.

    If you’re a prescriber or pharmacist, you owe it to yourself to check out the Atlantic Mentorship Network’s Prescribing Course – Safe Opioid Prescribing for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain. I had the pleasure of attending this course this weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Although I had been trying to get to this amazing course for quite…

  • How Open Minded Your Physician is May Determine Your Pain Relief

    How Open Minded Your Physician is May Determine Your Pain Relief

    When I graduated from Pharmacy school in 1993, topically applied preparations for pain relief were limited to lidocaine and capsaicin, or so I was told up to that point. I was also taught that narcotics were safe not only for short term pain relief but also for long term pain that was non palliative and…

  • Off label use of medications – cherry picking at its best

    I had a conversation with our local palliative care and pain clinic doctor the other day. As a disclaimer, this physician is open to treating patients with the safety of the patient first in mind and he also has what I refer to as an “open mind” when it comes to doing whatever we can…

  • What’s worth more? A favorable statistical p value or clinical results?

    With the recent talk of p-values and their value in scientific journals it brings to light an important interpretive tool in efficacy of therapies, clinical experience.  P value is the chance of getting a positive response in a scientific study when there is no real effect after all, also known as a false positive.  The…

  • Pain Relief

    There are few medical issues that bring about a “must deal with” mentality than pain.  Acute or chronic, it can have various causes: nerve pain, muscle pain, trauma, cancer, visceral, bone, various organ pain…it can be described as shooting, stabbing, dull, throbbing, aching, excruciating, and debilitating. Whatever the cause or description, when you have it…

  • Control Pain with Nutrition

    Most of us automatically think of a medication when we need something for pain.  Certainly for a sudden onset acute type of pain that occurs infrequently, I recommend an NSAID or Acetaminophen to our patients who need some safe and quick relief for themselves to get on with their day or night.  Most of the…