Is Your Pain Medication Effective or Was It Placebo Effect?

By Dr. Lynn Webster, PNN Columnist

Most of us have been prescribed a medicine at some time in our lives. And if we got better, we probably assumed it was because the medication was effective.

However, this may not have been completely true. A positive result following the use of a medication may have little to do with the drug.

If you're a M*A*S*H fan, you may have seen an episode called "Major Topper." In that show, Colonel Potter suggests they treat people in pain with a placebo because there is a morphine shortage — and it works. Did that mean their pain wasn’t real?

Placebos Work So Well They Can Fool Researchers

One of the greatest challenges in evaluating the efficacy of medical treatments is to minimize what is known as the placebo effect. The benefit provided by a treatment during clinical trials may appear to be significant. However, the treatment may fail to be approved by the FDA if the benefits for patients who receive a placebo are too similar to those who receive active treatment.

Drug approval requires that active treatment results are meaningful and differ statistically from placebo results, even though both may provide similar outcomes when compared to a baseline. 

I study drugs for their potential to be abused— what the FDA calls a Human Abuse Potential (HAP) study. People who participate in HAP studies must admit they recreationally use the class of drug which is undergoing evaluation, and must report a strong preference for the drug when compared to a placebo.

Most people would be surprised to learn that as many as 50% of the test subjects who commonly use a drug recreationally cannot adequately differentiate between the active drug and the placebo. Even more surprising is that one in five subjects report a much greater preference or “getting high" experience with the placebo than with the active drug.

There are several reasons for this. It could be that they don’t realize researchers know which drug they received and in what order. They are simply hoping to guess correctly because they want to participate in the study. Or the subjects may be anticipating an effect that they want (to get high) and that anticipation creates the effect in the reward center of their brain without even using an active drug.

This effect is not limited to drugs. As a principal investigator in a study, I surgically implanted wires at the base of the occiput (the skull) to stimulate occipital nerves in an attempt to prevent or treat migraine headaches. Although all subjects underwent the operation and were implanted with the wires, only half received active stimulation. The other half were programmed with a sham pattern of stimulation.

When the study was unblinded, we discovered that almost everyone in both groups (active and placebo) derived remarkable, but similar, relief from the therapy.

We concluded it was their expectation that an invasive procedure would be therapeutic that provided the positive outcome. Unfortunately, the positive results of both treatment and placebo meant the new procedure could not be approved on the basis of our testing.

Placebos Work Even When People Know About Them

Ted Kaptchuk, a Harvard Medical School professor of medicine, is the director of the Program in Placebo Studies at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In a recent episode of NPR's "Hidden Brain" podcast, Kaptchuk recounts similar results when testing the placebo effect.

However, his research added a new twist. Kaptchuk wanted to see what would happen if he used "radical honesty" to determine the potential of the placebo effect. Instead of tricking patients into believing they may receive an actual treatment instead of a placebo, Kaptchuk told his subjects they would receive a placebo. In other words, no actual drug would be administered to subjects and they were all aware of that.

Surprisingly, he found that a placebo could still work. "Hidden Brain" host Shankar Vedantam also talked to Linda Bonanno, who participated in Kaptchuk's study. Bonanno explained that Kaptchuk gave her a placebo to treat her irritable bowel syndrome and it eased the agonizing pain she had been living with for years.

The pain did not return until Kaptchuk stopped "prescribing" the placebo. For Bonanno, what seemed to help the most was the trusting relationship she had with Kaptchuk. The warmth and caring of her health care provider may have been enough to mitigate her pain.

As we know, pain isn't just a physical experience. It is a complex emotional experience that has psychological, social and spiritual elements. If a doctor's empathy, warmth, listening and caring can ease a patient's pain, that shouldn’t call into question whether the patient's pain was real. It simply makes the case that a trusting relationship with a healthcare provider is as important for successful treatment as the medication or procedure itself.  

Lynn R. Webster, MD, is a vice president of scientific affairs for PRA Health Sciences and consults with the pharmaceutical industry. He is author of the award-winning book, “The Painful Truth” and co-producer of the documentary, “It Hurts Until You Die.” You can find him on Twitter: @LynnRWebsterMD.

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

Common Meds Can Cause Cognition Problems in Seniors

By Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News

By all accounts the woman, in her late 60s, appeared to have severe dementia. She was largely incoherent. Her short-term memory was terrible. She couldn’t focus on questions that medical professionals asked her.

But Dr. Malaz Boustani, a professor of aging research at Indiana University School of Medicine, suspected something else might be going on. The patient was taking Benadryl for seasonal allergies, another antihistamine for itching, Seroquel (an antipsychotic medication) for mood fluctuations, as well as medications for urinary incontinence and gastrointestinal upset.

To various degrees, each of these drugs blocks an important chemical messenger in the brain, acetylcholine. Boustani thought the cumulative impact might be causing the woman’s cognitive difficulties.

He was right. Over six months, Boustani and a pharmacist took the patient off those medications and substituted alternative treatments. Miraculously, she appeared to recover completely. Her initial score on the Mini-Mental State Exam had been 11 of 30 — signifying severe dementia — and it shot up to 28, in the normal range.

An estimated 1 in 4 older adults take anticholinergic drugs — a wide-ranging class of medications used to treat allergies, insomnia, leaky bladders, diarrhea, dizziness, motion sickness, asthma, Parkinson’s disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and various psychiatric disorders.

Older adults are highly susceptible to negative responses to these medications. Since 2012, anticholinergics have been featured prominently on the American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria list of medications that are potentially inappropriate for seniors.

“The drugs that I’m most worried about in my clinic, when I need to think about what might be contributing to older patients’ memory loss or cognitive changes, are the anticholinergics,” said Dr. Rosemary Laird, a geriatrician and medical director of the Maturing Minds Clinic at AdventHealth in Winter Park, Fla.

Here’s what older adults should know about these drugs:

The Basics

Anticholinergic medications target acetylcholine, an important chemical messenger in the parasympathetic nervous system that dilates blood vessels and regulates muscle contractions, bodily secretions and heart rate, among other functions. In the brain, acetylcholine plays a key role in attention, concentration, and memory formation and consolidation.

Some medications have strong anticholinergic properties, others less so. Among prescription medicines with strong effects are antidepressants such as imipramine (brand name Trofanil), antihistamines such as hydroxyzine (Vistaril and Atarax), antipsychotics such as clozapine (Clozaril and FazaClo), antispasmodics such as dicyclomine (Bentyl) and drugs for urinary incontinence such as tolterodine (Detrol).

In addition to prescription medications, many common over-the-counter drugs have anticholinergic properties, including antihistamines such as Benadryl and Chlor-Trimeton and sleep aids such as Tylenol PM, Aleve PM and Nytol.

Common side effects include dizziness, confusion, drowsiness, disorientation, agitation, blurry vision, dry mouth, constipation, difficulty urinating and delirium, a sudden and acute change in consciousness.

Unfortunately, “physicians often attribute anticholinergic symptoms in elderly people to aging or age-related illness rather than the effects of drugs,” according to a research review by physicians at the Medical University of South Carolina and in Britain.

Seniors are more susceptible to adverse effects from these medications for several reasons: Their brains process acetylcholine less efficiently. The medications are more likely to cross the blood-brain barrier. And their bodies take longer to break down these drugs.

Long-Term Effects

In the late 1970s, researchers discovered that deficits in an enzyme that synthesizes acetylcholine were present in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. “That put geriatricians and neurologists on alert, and the word went out: Don’t put older adults, especially those with cognitive dysfunction, on drugs with acetylcholine-blocking effects,” said Dr. Steven DeKosky, deputy director of the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida.

Still, experts thought that the effects of anticholinergics were short-term and that if older patients stopped taking them, “that’s it — everything goes back to normal,” Boustani said.

Concerns mounted in the mid-2000s when researchers picked up signals that anticholinergic drugs could have a long-term effect, possibly leading to the death of brain neurons and the accumulation of plaques and tangles associated with neurodegeneration.

Since then several studies have noted an association between anticholinergics and a heightened risk of dementia. In late June, this risk was highlighted in a new report in JAMA Internal Medicine that examined more than 284,000 adults age 55 and older in Britain between 2004 and 2016.

The study found that more than half of these subjects had been prescribed at least one of 56 anticholinergic drugs. (Multiple prescriptions of these drugs were common as well.) People who took a daily dose of a strong anticholinergic for three years had a 49% increased risk of dementia. Effects were most pronounced for people who took anticholinergic antidepressants, antipsychotics, antiepileptic drugs and bladder control medications.

These findings don’t constitute proof that anticholinergic drugs cause dementia; they show only an association. But based on this study and earlier research, Boustani said, it now appears older adults who take strong anticholinergic medications for one to three years are vulnerable to long-term side effects.

Preventing Harm

Attention is now turning to how best to wean older adults off anticholinergics, and whether doing so might improve cognition or prevent dementia.

Researchers at Indiana University’s School of Medicine hope to answer these questions in two new studies, starting this fall, supported by $6.8 million in funding from the National Institute on Aging.

One will enroll 344 older adults who are taking anticholinergics and whose cognition is mildly impaired. A pharmacist will work with these patients and their physicians to take them off the medications, and patients’ cognition will be assessed every six months for two years.

The goal is to see whether patients’ brains “get better,” said Noll Campbell, a research scientist at Indiana University’s Regenstrief Institute and an assistant professor at Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy. If so, that would constitute evidence that anticholinergic drugs cause cognitive decline.

The second trial, involving 700 older adults, will examine whether an app that educates seniors about potential harms associated with anticholinergic medications and assigns a personalized risk score for dementia induces people to initiate conversations with physicians about getting off these drugs.

Moving patients off anticholinergic drugs requires “slow tapering down of medications” over three to six months, at a minimum, according to Nagham Ailabouni, a geriatric pharmacist at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. In most cases, good treatment alternatives are available.

Advice for Older Adults

Seniors concerned about taking anticholinergic drugs “need to approach their primary care physician and talk about the risks versus the benefits of taking these medications,” said Shellina Scheiner, an assistant professor and clinical geriatric pharmacist at the University of Minnesota.

Don’t try stopping cold turkey or on your own. “People can become dependent on these drugs and experience withdrawal side effects such as agitation, dizziness, confusion and jitteriness,” Ailabouni said. “This can be managed, but you need to work with a medical provider.”

Also, “don’t make the assumption that if [a] drug is available over the counter that it’s automatically safe for your brain,” Boustani said. In general, he advises older adults to ask physicians about how all the medications they’re taking could affect their brain.

Finally, doctors should “not give anticholinergic medications to people with any type of dementia,” DeKosky said. “This will not only interfere with their memory but is likely to make them confused and interfere with their functioning.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Task Force: Canada's Chronic Pain Patients ‘Simply Deserve Better’

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

In March, Health Canada created a new national task force to study how to prevent and treat chronic pain and remove barriers to pain treatment. Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor called it “the first step in addressing the issue of chronic pain in this country.”

One in five Canadians lives with chronic pain and -- like their counterparts in the United States -- many have trouble just finding a doctor willing to treat them. Some patient advocates were skeptical of Health Canada’s task force and its plan to release an initial report this summer, followed by two more reports in 2020 and 2021. It sounded like bureaucratic foot dragging.

“We are happy they are actually acknowledging chronic pain is an issue. However, the time frame is wrong and a little bit too late,” said Barry Ulmer of the Chronic Pain Association of Canada (CPAC).

Four months later, that initial report from the task force has now been released. It calls pain a “significant public health issue” in Canada and admits the nation’s healthcare system often fails to treat pain patients. Efforts to rein in opioid prescribing — such as Canada’s opioid guideline — have made a bad situation worse.

“Some Canadians have been unable to access opioid medications when needed for pain and function. Others have faced undue barriers to obtaining or filling their opioid prescriptions, and some have had their opioid dose abruptly lowered or discontinued. This has resulted in unnecessary pain and suffering, and has led some Canadians to obtain illegal drugs to treat their pain,” the task force found.

“People living with pain have limited access to the services they require and often face stigma and undue suffering as a result of their condition. This stigma often intersects with other forms of discrimination related to poverty, housing and employment instability, mental illness, race and ethnicity, and other factors further complicating the challenge of living with pain. Canadians living with pain and their loved ones simply deserve better.”

Patients Not Believed

In its short history, the task force completed an ambitious review of pain care in Canada; holding public workshops, meeting with federal and local governments, and consulting with healthcare providers and researchers. Importantly, the panel also reached out to the pain community and invited 12 Canadians living with chronic pain to share their experiences. Many said they had poor access to pain care or were not believed by healthcare providers.

“I was bounced between various outpatient clinics and utilizing the ER multiple times a month and making no progress,” one patent said. “I was consistently questioned whether or not I was making up the pain for attention, or if the pain was due to a mental health condition.” 

“While I am fortunate to be seen periodically by a pain specialist, I do not have access to a multidisciplinary pain clinic where key services, such as physiotherapy and psychology are provided. Many patients in my community have even less (or no) access to a pain specialist and are unduly suffering as a result. They do not know where to turn,” another patient said.

“I found the transition from the pediatric pain clinic to the adult pain clinic very difficult. At the pediatric pain clinic they have a multi-disciplinary team, which include a psychologist, a physiotherapist, a nurse, and a pain specialist. At the adult pain clinic they only have a physician who is amazing but is overstretched, sometimes I can only get an appointment every 6 months,” another patient told the task force. 

Pain Education Lacking

Improving pain education in Canada’s medical schools was one of the first goals identified by the task force. In a review of 10 Canadian universities, the panel found that 68% of the medical programs were not providing any designated hours for pain education.  Incredibly, veterinary students receive 2 to 5 times more pain education than that of health science students.

The panel also found that pain care in Canada is largely dependent on where people live and what type of insurance they have; that pain patients need better access to psychological support, physical therapies and other healthcare services; and that more research and better evidence is needed to help providers make informed decisions on pain care.

“This report makes Health Canada aware of what Canadians with pain have known for too long: that pain care is largely not accessible, many health care providers lack the knowledge and skills to manage pain and breakthroughs in research are hampered by lack of funding,” said Maria Hudspith, co-chair of the task force and Executive Director of Pain BC, a patient advocacy group in British Columbia.

“We hope this report lays the foundation for a national pain strategy that will improve the lives of Canadians who live with pain.”

Not everyone is happy with the direction the task force is taking. CPAC called it a “knee jerk” reaction to the pain crisis that continues to spread stigma about pain patients and their use of opioid medication.

“You see it again in this report,” CPAC’s Ulmer said in a statement. “Pain patients are supposedly often mentally ill—somehow, the need for relief has been recast as mental illness, though it seems pretty sane to me. And patients are repeatedly said to be at high risk of addiction.”

Last month, a federal task force in the U.S. released a final report on recommended best practices for pain management. It found nearly identical problems as the panel in Canada — and called for a balanced approach to pain treatment that focuses on individualized patient care, not rigid prescribing guidelines that have triggered a pain crisis for millions of Americans.

5 Million U.S. Cancer Survivors Live with Chronic Pain

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Over five million cancer survivors in the United States live with chronic pain, a fast-growing population that is expected to double by 2040 due to the aging of the population, early cancer detection and advances in treatment, according to a new study by the American Cancer Society.

Chronic pain is one of the most common side effects of chemotherapy and other forms of cancer treatment, but until now there has been little information on its prevalence among cancer survivors.

Researchers looked at data from the National Health Interview Survey from 2016-2017 and found that about a third of cancer survivors (34.6%) have chronic pain. About one in six (16.1%) have “high impact” chronic pain (HICP) – defined as pain that limits life or work activities on most days.

Based on that survey data, researchers estimate the total number of cancers survivors in the U.S. at 15.5 million. About 5.39 million of them have chronic pain and 2.51 million have high impact chronic pain.

“We found the prevalence of chronic pain and HICP among cancer survivors to be almost double that in the general U.S. population. Chronic pain and HICP were more prevalent in survivors who were unemployed and who had low socioeconomic status, inadequate insurance, and had some specific types of cancer,” researchers reported in JAMA Oncology.

“The patterns of chronic pain that we observed in cancer survivors may be explained by barriers to cancer care and pain management as well as by the type and extent of cancer treatment received.”

One barrier to pain management stems from efforts to rein in opioid prescribing to prevent abuse and addiction. While the 2016 CDC opioid guideline is intended for “noncancer” patients, it is also applies to patients “who have completed cancer treatment, are in clinical remission, and are under cancer surveillance only.”

Two experts in oncology and palliative care at the University of Pennsylvania say the CDC’s inclusion of cancer survivors was a mistake because it is not uncommon for cancer pain to persist long after a cancer is treated.  

“Unfortunately, this arbitrary distinction is not consistent with the evidence of pain trajectory in cancer survivors,” Neha Vapiwala, MD, and Salimah Meghani, PhD, wrote in an op/ed also published in JAMA Oncology. “Similar levels of pain were reported in survivors who were still receiving cancer treatment and those who had completed active cancer treatment.”

It’s not uncommon for cancer patients undergoing active treatment to be denied pain medication. Many doctors are reluctant to prescribe opioids, regardless of the diagnosis.

“My cancer doctor will no longer prescribe pain meds for me because I now see a pain doctor. The pain doctor doesn't understand the new cancer drug I'm on and that the side effects of this drug are pain, so he is very reluctant to manage my cancer pain,” a patient with lymphoma told us. “Many days I wonder if it would just be better to let the cancer take its course than to be scrutinized and treated like a criminal.”

April Doyle is being treated for Stage 4 terminal breast cancer, but a Rite Aid pharmacist refused to fill her prescription for Norco because he was worried about being fined or even losing his job. April’s video about the experience went viral.

“I have to take 20 pills a day just to stay alive,” she explains in the video. “Every time I take my pain pill prescription there, they give me the runaround. They don’t have enough in stock or they need me to come back tomorrow because they can’t fill it today. Or something stupid. It’s always something and it’s always some stupid excuse.”

The American Cancer Society study found that chronic pain was most common among cancer survivors treated for bone, kidney, throat-pharynx and uterine cancers.  About half still had pain after their cancer treatment ended.

A Gut Feeling About Fibromyalgia

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Over the years there’s been a lot of speculation about what causes fibromyalgia – everything from gluten and genetics to childhood trauma, spinal fractures and a weakened immune system.

About 5 million Americans suffer from fibromyalgia, a poorly understood disorder characterized by deep tissue pain, fatigue, mood swings and insomnia. It can take years for a patient to be diagnosed and treatments are often ineffective – in part because of uncertainty about what actually causes fibromyalgia.

For the first time, researchers at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal have found an association between gut bacteria and fibromyalgia. It’s not clear whether the microbes cause fibromyalgia or if they are a symptom, but the discovery opens the door to new forms of treatment and diagnosis. The findings are being reported in the journal Pain.

"We found that fibromyalgia and the symptoms of fibromyalgia — pain, fatigue and cognitive difficulties — contribute more than any of the other factors to the variations we see in the microbiomes of those with the disease,” said lead author Amir Minerbi, MD, of the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at McGill University Health Centre. 

“We also saw that the severity of a patient's symptoms was directly correlated with an increased presence or a more pronounced absence of certain bacteria - something which has never been reported before."

Minerbi and his colleagues enrolled 156 women in their study – about half had fibromyalgia and the rest were a healthy control group. Participants were interviewed and gave stool, blood, saliva and urine samples, which were then compared.

Researchers found that the two groups had strikingly different types and amounts of gut bacteria. Nineteen different species of bacteria were found in either greater or lesser quantities in the gut microbiomes of fibromyalgia patients than in the healthy control group.

For example, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, one of the most abundant and well-studied bacteria in the human gut, was found to be depleted in fibromyalgia patients. It is believed to block pain and inflammation in the intestines.

Other bacteria associated with irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome and interstitial cystitis were found to be abundant in the fibromyalgia patients, but not in the healthy control group.  

The bacterial differences don’t appear to be related to diets, lifestyles or genetics, since some of the healthy participants lived in the same house as the fibromyalgia patients or were their parents, offspring or siblings.

"We used a range of techniques, including Artificial Intelligence, to confirm that the changes we saw in the microbiomes of fibromyalgia patients were not caused by factors such as diet, medication, physical activity, age, and so on, which are known to affect the microbiome," says Minerbi.

Researchers say it's not clear whether the changes in gut bacteria seen in fibromyalgia patients are simply markers of the disease or whether they play a role in causing it. Because fibromyalgia involves a cluster of symptoms, the next step will be to investigate whether there are similar changes in the gut microbiome of patients with other types of chronic pain, such as back pain, headaches and neuropathic pain.

“This is the first evidence, at least in humans, that the microbiome could have an effect on diffuse pain, and we really need new ways to look at chronic pain." said senior author Yoram Shir, MD, Director of the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit

If their findings are confirmed, researchers think their discovery could speed up the process of diagnosing fibromyalgia.

"By using machine learning, our computer was able to make a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, based only on the composition of the microbiome, with an accuracy of 87 per cent. As we build on this first discovery with more research, we hope to improve upon this accuracy, potentially creating a step-change in diagnosis," says Emmanuel Gonzalez, PhD, Canadian Center for Computational Genomics and the Department of Human Genetics at McGill University.

Several previous studies have suggested an association between diet and fibromyalgia. Donna Gregory Burch says her fibromyalgia symptoms improved when she went on a gluten-free diet. Studies show that consuming food additives such as monosodium glutamate (MSG) can worsen symptoms, while foods rich in Vitamin D can help reduce joint and muscle pain.

16 Key Findings about Arachnoiditis

By Forest Tennant, MD, PNN Columnist

We initiated the “Arachnoiditis Research Project” about 6 months ago. Our first goal was to pull together what we have learned to this point. While we continue to gather new information, this short report is an interim attempt to get our findings into the patient and practitioner communities.  

This report is not intended to be a formal protocol or guideline, but a way to pass on what we have found and determined during the course of our learnings.  Please keep in mind that research is neither static nor absolute.  In the future, newer findings will likely both clarify and expand upon our initial findings as presented in this report.    

Frankly, the response to the Arachnoiditis Research Project has been overwhelming. Each day we receive inquiries from patients and practitioners. Patients want help. Practitioners want to know what to do.

We have now reviewed over 300 MRI’s of Adhesive Arachnoiditis (AA) cases. We have received inquiries from 5 continents and over 17 countries. One thing is clear. The need to research and identify treatment for AA is here.  

The goal of our research is to bring AA treatment to every community worldwide. How? By developing both diagnostic and treatment protocols that can be implemented by any medical practitioner in every community. Here is what we have learned so far:

16 Findings about Adhesive Arachnoiditis  

1. Treatment efficacy is best achieved by the simultaneous administration of a three component medication program to suppress neuroinflammation, promote neuro-regeneration (nerve regrowth), and provide pain control to function. Medication for these three categories can be competently prescribed by any primary medical practitioner.  

2. The most common cause of lumbar sacral AA is no longer dural puncture or trauma but intervertebral disc deterioration and spinal stenosis, which has forced cauda equina nerve roots to rub together causing friction, inflammation and adhesion formation.  

3. Although there is no single symptom that uniquely identifies AA, there are a few symptoms that the majority of AA patients will usually have.  A simple 7-question screening questionnaire has been developed to help in identifying potential AA. If a patient answers “yes” to at least four of the seven questions in the test, they should immediately be evaluated by a physician to confirm the diagnosis.  

4. A contrast MRI or high-resolution TESLA-3 or higher MRI can be used to visualize the cauda equina nerve roots and show abnormal swelling, displacement, clumping, and adhesions between clumps and the arachnoid layer of the spinal canal covering.  A greater number and larger size of clumps is generally associated with the most severe pain and neurologic impairments.  

5. Some MRI’s are inconclusive or equivocal even though typical symptoms may be present.  In these cases, therapeutic trials of anti-neuroinflammatory drugs and pain control are warranted.  

6. Spinal fluid flow impairment is common in AA patients and appears to be a cause of headache, blurred vision, nausea, and dizziness.  Obstruction or back-up of fluid can often be seen on an MRI.   

7. Spinal fluid “seepage” throughout the damaged arachnoid layer and wall of the lumbar sacral spine covering is common and can be a cause of pain, tissue destruction and severe contraction that causes restriction of extension of arms and legs.  A physical sign of chronic seepage is indentation of tissues around the lumbar spine.  

8. Pain due to AA appears to be a combination of two types: inflammatory and neuropathic (nerve damage).  It may also be centralized with what is called “descending” pain.  Proper pain control may require medicinal agents for all types.  

9. There is currently no reliable laboratory test for the presence of active neuroinflammation, although certain markers (by-products of inflammation) such as C-Reactive Protein and myeloperoxidase may sometimes show in the blood.  Neuroinflammation may go into remission, but it may also act silently to cause progressive nerve root destruction.  

10. Basic science and animal studies show the neuro-steroids (hormones made inside the spinal cord) have the basic functions of neuroinflammation suppression and neuro-regeneration stimulation.  Our observations clearly indicate that the patients who have improved the most have taken one or more of the hormones reported to reduce neuroinflammation and promote and support neuro-regeneration.  

11. Patients who have had AA for longer than 5 years must rely on aggressive pain control to function and achieve recovery.  After a long period of untreated neuroinflammation, scarring of nerve roots is too severe for much regeneration to occur.  

12. The drugs and hormones required for suppression of neuroinflammation and promotion of neuro-regeneration do not need to be taken daily to be effective and prevent side effects.  Medical practitioners have a choice of agents, and they can be competently prescribed by primary care practitioners.  We have found that three times a week dosing is usually quite sufficient.

13. Persons who have developed AA without warning, trauma or chronic disc disease have often been found to have a genetic connective tissue disorder of which the most common are Ehlers-Danlos syndromes.  

14. Cervical neck arachnoiditis is primarily a clinical and presumed diagnosis as there are no nerve roots to clump and observe on MRI.  The key MRI finding is spinal fluid flow obstruction and the major clinical symptom is extreme pain on neck flexing.  

15. Only ketorolac among the anti-inflammatories, and methylprednisolone among the corticoids are routinely effective in AA.  Other anti-inflammatories and corticoids either do not cross the blood brain barrier or therapeutically attach to glial cell receptors.  

16. Some seemingly unrelated compounds found to suppress microglial inflammation in animal and invitro studies also appear to have therapeutic benefit as neuroinflammatory suppressors in AA patients.  These include pentoxifylline, acetazolamide, minocycline and metformin.

The Tennant Foundation has also released an enhanced protocol for primary care physicians who treat AA patients. You can find the protocols and research reports on our website.

Forest Tennant, MD, MPH, DrPH, has retired from clinical practice but continues his groundbreaking research on the treatment of intractable pain and arachnoiditis.

This report is provided as a public service by the Arachnoiditis Research and Education Project of the Tennant Foundation and is republished with permission. Correspondence should be sent to veractinc@msn.com

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represents the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.

WHO Recognizes Chronic Pain as Disease With New Coding System

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

The World Health Organization has adopted a new classification system for chronic pain, assigning it the code ICD-11 in a revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). It’s the first time the ICD will include a specific diagnostic code for chronic pain, along with sub-codes for several common chronic pain conditions. 

The new classification system is important because it treats chronic pain as a distinct health condition and as a symptom to an underlying disease. It also takes into account the intensity of pain, pain-related disability, and psychosocial factors that contribute to pain.

“The inclusion of the new classification system for chronic pain in ICD-11 is an important milestone for the pain field,” says Lars Arendt-Nielsen, MD, President of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), which headed a task force that developed ICD-11.

The new coding system will make it easier for physicians to diagnose, classify and get treatment for chronic pain patients. Insurers will use the new codes to authorize payments and researchers can use them to more easily track and measure the effectiveness of therapies. That’s the good news. 

The bad news is that the ICD changes won’t formally take effect until January 1, 2022. 

Under the current system, chronic pain conditions are poorly categorized under the code ICD-10, which makes it difficult for complex conditions such as fibromyalgia and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) to be classified. That led some physicians to diagnose patients with unexplained pain as having a somatic symptom disorder. 

“A diagnosis of somatic symptom disorder implies that the pain is caused by a behavioral, that is, mental condition. However, it is not appropriate to diagnose individuals with a mental disorder solely because an alternative medical cause cannot be established,” Jaochim Scholtz, MD, an IASP task force member, explained in Practical Pain Management.  

Under the new coding system, patients with fibromyalgia or CRPS could be classified as having a “primary pain” disorder, one of seven new sub-codes for chronic pain conditions:

1. Chronic primary pain

2. Chronic cancer-related pain

3. Chronic post-surgical or post-traumatic pain

4. Chronic neuropathic pain

5. Chronic secondary headache or orofacial pain

6. Chronic secondary visceral pain

7. Chronic secondary musculoskeletal pain.

There is some overlap between the different diagnostic codes. For example, neuropathic pain can be a symptom of cancer or chemotherapy, while trigeminal neuralgia could fall under neuropathic or orofacial pain. The idea is to give physicians a range of codes to choose from instead of the limited choices they have today.

“The integration of chronic pain in ICD-11 sends a strong signal that pain will achieve appropriate representation in this international standard for reporting diseases and health conditions,” said Scholtz. “The coding system also provides fundamental information for the identification of health trends and healthcare planning. It is widely hoped that the new systematic classification of chronic pain in the ICD-11 will support epidemiological, and other research that is essential for the development of future health policies.”

The classification system was outlined in a free online article published in the January 2019 issue of PAIN.

American Pain Society Likely to File for Bankruptcy

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

The board of directors of the American Pain Society (APS) is recommending to its members that the organization cease operations and file for bankruptcy, PNN has learned.

The APS is a non-profit, research-based organization that focuses on the causes and treatment of acute and chronic pain. Although many of its members are researchers and academics who are investigating non-opioid treatments for pain, the APS has been named as a defendant in numerous “spurious lawsuits” involving opioid prescriptions.

“Despite our best efforts, APS was unsuccessful in its attempts to resolve these lawsuits without the need for what will no doubt be lengthy and expensive litigation. The anticipated time-consuming and costly litigation combined with the declining membership and meeting attendance has created the perfect storm placing APS in a precarious financial position,” the board said in a letter sent to its members yesterday.

“Constrained by these unfortunate circumstances, we do not believe APS can continue to fulfill its mission and meet the needs and expectations of our members and community.”   

In order to proceed with a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, only 10% of the organization’s 1,173 active members need to approve the board’s recommendation. Assuming there are sufficient votes, an independent third party trustee would then be appointed by a bankruptcy judge and all lawsuits pending against APS will be subject to an automatic stay.

“This will allow APS to minimize legal expenses and maximize recoveries for its creditors, as opposed to future dissipation of assets in defending the lawsuits which have no end in sight,” the board wrote.

The APS membership vote will be tallied May 29th.

“Sad day for U.S. pain research, education, advocacy and patient care,” APS member and Stanford University psychologist Beth Darnall, PhD, tweeted to her followers.

In recent years, thousands of lawsuits have been filed by states, cities and counties seeking to recover billions of dollars in damages caused by the “overprescribing” of opioid pain medication. The lawsuits initially focused on Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers, but have recently expanded to include opioid distributors, wholesalers, pharmacies and professional medical organizations like the APS as defendants.

If the APS files for bankruptcy, it would be the second pain management organization to cease operations in recent months. In February, the Academy of Integrative Pain Management (AIPM) shutdown, largely due to financial problems.  

“It's really sad that pain organizations are failing,” said Bob Twillman, PhD, the former Executive Director of AIPM. “I'm not clear about the extent to which this was an anticipated or desired outcome of the lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, but it strikes me that an effort to say that we've been harming people by treating pain the wrong way has now eliminated two organizations focused on treating pain the way every guideline now says it should be treated, and on discovering new treatments that might obviate the need for opioids.”

Twillman says the shutdown of APS and AIPM will cause “significant gaps in the field” of pain management.

“The unintended consequences here may end up being quite ironic," he added.

Guilt by Association 

Like other professional medical organizations, APS relied on corporate donors to help pay for its annual meetings and widely respected publication, The Journal of Pain. That meant accepting nearly $1 million in donations from Purdue Pharma, Janssen, Depomed and other opioid manufacturers.

It also meant being targeted by lawyers and politicians in a campaign of guilt by association.

In 2018, APS was one of the medical societies and patient advocacy groups singled out by Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) in a Senate report that accused the organizations of being mouthpieces for opioid manufacturers. 

“Initiatives from the groups in this report often echoed and amplified messages favorable to increased opioid use — and ultimately, the financial interests of opioid manufacturers,” the report found.

McCaskill’s report failed to mention that she accepted nearly $500,000 in campaign donations since 2005 from the national law firm of Simmons Hanly Conroy, which represents many of the plaintiffs involved in opioid litigation. It has named the APS as a defendant in several of those lawsuits, along with American Academy of Pain Medicine and American Geriatric Society “for working with the manufacturing defendants in promoting opioids to doctors and patients.”

Simmons Hanly Conroy was the third largest contributor to McKaskill during her losing bid for re-election last year, donating over $400,000, an amount seven times larger than it gave to any other candidate in 2018, according to OpenSecrets.org.

According to its website, Simmons Hanly Conroy currently represents governmental entities in Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, and eight New York counties in opioid lawsuits. The law firm reportedly stands to collect one-third of the proceeds from opioid settlements, which could potentially reach $50 billion, according to a Bloomberg analyst.

‘Corrupting Influence’

APS is also mentioned in a congressional report released this week by Reps. Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Hal Rogers (R-KY). The “Corrupting Influence: Purdue and the WHO” report accuses the World Health Organization of being unduly influenced by Purdue Pharma and other opioid makers when it developed guidelines in 2011 and 2012 to treat pain in adults and children.

“The web of influence we uncovered, combined with the WHO’s recommendations, paints a picture of a public health organization that has been manipulated by the opioid industry,” the report said. “The investigation revealed that multiple organizations that claimed to be independent patient advocacy groups, including the American Pain Society, received significant payments from opioid manufacturers.”

The report does not mention that Rep. Clark has also accepted significant payments from drug makers. According to OpenSecrets.com, Clark has received over $522,000 in campaign donations from the healthcare industry since 2013, including donations from Pfizer, Celgene, Takeda, Biogen, Vertex, AstraZeneca and Sanofi.

Rep. Rogers has received over $581,000 in campaign donations from the healthcare industry during his 30 years in Congress.

Chronic Pain Causes Brains to Age More Rapidly

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Poorly treated or untreated chronic pain can lead to a number of other health problems, from high blood pressure and insomnia to depression and anxiety.

Now there is evidence that chronic pain also causes brains to age more rapidly, raising the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological problems associated with aging.

“Our findings highlight the need to address chronic pain, not just in older individuals but in potentially everyone, as pain may have unintended consequences in the brain that we don’t yet fully understand,” said lead author Yenisel Cruz-Almeida, PhD, a researcher at the University of Florida Institute on Aging.

Over a three-year period, Cruz-Almeida and her colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the volume of gray and white matter in the brains of 47 older adults, ages 60 to 83.  The volunteers were free of neurological disorders and in generally good health, although 33 of them had some type of chronic pain.

Volunteers who did not have chronic pain had brains that appeared four years younger than their actual age.

Chronic pain sufferers had brains that appeared an average of two years older. They were also more likely to have greater pain intensity, have a “less agreeable personality” and be less emotionally stable, according to researchers.

The University of Florida produced this video on the study, which was recently published online in the journal Pain.

“Not everybody ages the same way,” said Cruz-Almeida. “I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, I have chronic pain. I’m doomed.’ This is not the case. That is not the message we want to get out. There is more nuance than that.”

Interestingly, the volunteers who reported getting pain treatment in the last three months had younger-appearing brains compared to those that did not, suggesting that pain relief slows brain aging. Pain sufferers who had a happier outlook on life and were generally more upbeat also had younger-appearing brains.

“The pain experience is not just in your brain,” said Cruz-Almeida. “There appear to be avenues or things that could be done to change brain age.

“Our findings also suggest that both pain treatments and psychological traits may significantly mitigate the effect of pain on the aging brain and could further decrease the risk of age-related deterioration and death.”

Cruz-Almeida is planning additional research with a larger sample of older adults that will look at ways to alleviate accelerated brain aging.

‘Radical Shift’ Predicted in Fibromyalgia Diagnosis and Treatment

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

New research has uncovered a previously unknown connection between fibromyalgia and the early stages of diabetes, which could dramatically change the way the chronic pain condition is diagnosed and treated.

In a small study of 23 fibromyalgia patients and two control groups, researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) were able to separate patients with fibromyalgia (FM) from healthy individuals using a common blood test for insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes. They then treated the fibromyalgia patients with a medication targeting insulin resistance (IR), which dramatically reduced their pain levels.

“Although preliminary, these findings suggest a pathogenetic relationship between FM and IR,  which may lead to a radical paradigm shift in the management of this disorder,” researchers reported in the online journal PlosOne.

Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood disorder that causes widespread body pain, fatigue, insomnia, headaches and mood swings. The cause is unknown, the symptoms are difficult to treat and there is no universally accepted way to diagnose it.

"Earlier studies discovered that insulin resistance causes dysfunction within the brain's small blood vessels. Since this issue is also present in fibromyalgia, we investigated whether insulin resistance is the missing link in this disorder," said Miguel Pappolla, MD, a professor of neurology at UTMB.

Pappolla and his colleagues found that patients with fibromyalgia can be identified by their hemoglobin A1c levels, a protein in red blood cells that reflects blood sugar levels. A1c tests are widely used to diagnose type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, and are routinely used in diabetes management.

Researchers say pre-diabetics with slightly elevated A1c levels carry a higher risk of developing widespread body pain, a hallmark of fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions.

"Considering the extensive research on fibromyalgia, we were puzzled that prior studies had overlooked this simple connection," said Pappolla. "The main reason for this oversight is that about half of fibromyalgia patients have A1c values currently considered within the normal range.

“However, this is the first study to analyze these levels normalized for the person's age, as optimal A1c levels do vary throughout life. Adjustment for the patients' age was critical in highlighting the differences between patients and control subjects."

After identifying the fibromyalgia patients with elevated A1c levels, researchers treated them with metformin, an oral medication that manages insulin resistance by restoring normal blood sugar levels. The patients showed dramatic reductions in their pain levels, with half (8 of 16 patients) having a complete resolution of pain.

“Our data provides preliminary evidence suggesting that IR may be a pathological substratum in FM and sets the stage for future studies to confirm these initial observations. If confirmed, our findings may translate not only into a radical paradigm shift for the management of FM but may also save billions of dollars to healthcare systems around the world,” researchers reported.

Social Support Key to Recovery from Suicidal Thoughts

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t get an email or a comment left on this website about suicide.

Recently a young military veteran named “Joe” reached out. Joe is depressed and unable to work because he has chronic back and leg pain

“The thing is, I’m just about to turn 28 and can’t fathom how I’m supposed to go on like this for another year or two let alone trying to live my life for the next 60-70 years,” Joe wrote. “I’m not going to do anything yet but I have been seriously looking into euthanasia. I haven’t been able to have a real conversation with anybody about it, not even one of my 5 therapists or my wife, because I already know their reactions.”

Joe said he felt very rational about his decision but was anxious to talk about it “without being thrown into a straightjacket.”

Joe’s instinctive urge to talk with someone could be the key to working through this difficult time in his life, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto. They analyzed a survey of 635 Canadians with chronic pain who had seriously thought about suicide to find out what qualities made those thoughts go away. Suicide “ideation” disappeared in about two-thirds of them.

Having a social support network – someone to talk to – was the key.

“The biggest factor in recovery from suicidal thoughts was having a confidant, defined as having at least one close relationship that provide the person in chronic pain a sense of emotional security and well-being,” said lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, PhD, a Professor of Social Work, Medicine and Nursing and Director of the Institute for Life Course & Aging.

“Even when a wide range of other characteristics such as age, gender and mental health history were taken into account, those with a confidant had 87 percent higher odds of being in remission from suicidal thoughts compared to those with no close relationships."

People with pain who stopped having suicidal thoughts were also significantly more likely to be older, female, white, better educated, and more likely to use prayer and spirituality to cope with daily problems.

Living in poverty and struggling to pay basic living expenses were barriers to recovery from suicide ideation. Poverty can severely limit access to healthcare, transportation and social activity.

"Clearly we need targeted efforts to decrease social isolation and loneliness among those experiencing chronic pain. These participants reported that pain prevented some or most of their activities, so they were particularly vulnerable to social isolation,” said Fuller-Thomson. “More awareness by the general public that mobility limitations associated with chronic pain can make it difficult for individuals to socialize outside the household, could encourage friends and family to visit and phone more and thereby decrease loneliness."

PNN’s recent survey of over 6,000 patients and healthcare providers shows how pervasive suicide is in the pain community. Nearly half the patients said they have considered suicide, while nearly one in four practitioners said they have lost a patient to suicide.

The good news is that public health agencies are finally starting to pay attention to these issues. Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned doctors not to abruptly discontinue or rapidly taper patients on opioid pain medication because of the risk of suicide.

“(FDA) has received reports of serious harm in patients who are physically dependent on opioid pain medicines suddenly having these medicines discontinued or the dose rapidly decreased. These include serious withdrawal symptoms, uncontrolled pain, psychological distress, and suicide,” the agency said.

If you or a loved one are having suicidal thoughts, support is just a phone call away. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline has trained counselors on duty 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK.

1 in 5 Multiple Sclerosis Patients Misdiagnosed

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Nearly one in five patients who are told they have multiple sclerosis are misdiagnosed with the autoimmune disease, according to a new study of patients referred to two MS treatment centers in Los Angeles. The patients spent an average of four years being treated for MS before receiving a correct diagnosis.

MS is a chronic disease that attacks the body’s central nervous system, causing pain, numbness, difficulty walking, paralysis, loss of vision, and fatigue. The symptoms are similar to those of several other chronic conditions – including neuropathy, migraine and fibromyalgia – which often leads to a misdiagnosis.

Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology Center analyzed the cases of 241 patients who had been diagnosed by other physicians and then referred to the Cedars-Sinai or UCLA MS clinics.

Their findings, published in the journal Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, indicate that 43 of the 241 patients (18%) with a previous diagnosis of MS did not meet the criteria for the disease.

"The diagnosis of MS is tricky. Both the symptoms and MRI testing results can look like other conditions, such as stroke, migraines and vitamin B12 deficiency," said lead author Marwa Kaisey, MD. "You have to rule out any other diagnoses, and it's not a perfect science."

The most common correct diagnoses was migraine (16%), radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) (9%), spondylopathy (7%), and neuropathy (7%). RIS is a condition in which patients do not experience symptoms of MS even though their imaging tests look similar to those of MS patients.

The misdiagnosed patients received approximately 110 patient-years of unnecessary MS disease modifying drugs. Nearly half received medications that carry a known risk of developing progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a potentially fatal brain infection.

"I've seen patients suffering side effects from the medication they were taking for a disease they didn't have," Kaisey said. "Meanwhile, they weren't getting treatment for what they did have. The cost to the patient is huge — medically, psychologically, financially."

The cost of disease modifying medications for an MS patient in the U.S. exceeds $50,000 a year. Investigators estimated that the unnecessary treatments identified in this study alone cost almost $10 million. 

Researchers hope the results of the study will lead to new biomarkers and improved imaging techniques to help prevent future MS misdiagnoses.

A similar study in 2016 also found that MS patients were often misdiagnosed. One third of the patients were misdiagnosed for a decade or longer, most took unnecessary and potentially harmful medication to treat a disease they didn't have, and some even participated in clinical trials for experimental MS therapies. About a third suffered from morbid thoughts of death.

Menopause Linked to Chronic Pain

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

It’s no secret that middle-aged women are far more likely than men to have chronic pain and to feel its effects more severely. A large new study tells us some of the reasons why.

VA researchers analyzed the health data of over 200,000 female veterans between the ages of 45 and 64 and found that women with menopause symptoms were nearly twice as likely to have chronic pain and multiple chronic pain diagnoses.

"Changing levels of hormones around menopause have complex interactions with pain modulation and pain sensitivity, which may be associated with vulnerability to either the development or exacerbation of pain conditions," says JoAnn Pinkerton, MD, Executive Director of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS). "This study suggests that menopause symptom burden may also be related to chronic pain experience."

Hormonal change alone wasn’t the only thing many of the women had in common. Those who were overweight, obese or had a mental health diagnosis were also more likely to have chronic pain. Eighteen percent of the female veterans had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 13 percent suffered from depression and 15 percent had anxiety.

Common changes related to menopause and aging include weight gain, decreased physical activity, impaired sleep and negative mood, which can contribute to chronic pain and are also known to affect pain sensitivity and tolerance.

“Both chronic pain and menopause symptoms are strongly and consistently associated with psychosocial factors and health risk behaviors prevalent in and after the menopause transition,” said lead author Carolyn Gibson, PhD, San Francisco VA Health Care System. “Consideration should be given to integrated approaches to comprehensive care for midlife and older women with chronic pain, such as targeted cognitive behavioral therapy coordinated with interdisciplinary care providers.”    

The study findings are published in the journal Menopause.

A large 2018 study also found a strong association between menopause and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center found that post-menopausal women with RA had a significant increase in functional physical decline. Menopause was also associated with worsening progression of the disease.  

Putting a Pin into Pain

By Pat Anson, Editor

As a social media platform, Pinterest is best known as a place to share recipes or get tips about fashion and home decorating — topics that appeal to its core audience of women.

But over the years Pinterest has quietly evolved into a surprisingly good place to learn about chronic pain and to network with others in the pain community, according to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University. Their study, “Pinning to Cope: Using Pinterest for Chronic Pain Management,” was recently published in the journal Health Education & Behavior.

“We’re seeing that Pinterest is being used by patients to really support each other, to provide information for each other, and to just find an outlet for dealing with chronic pain,” said Jeanine Guidry, PhD, who studies social media and mobile technology.

Guidry and co-author Eric Benotsch, PhD, a psychology professor at VCU, analyzed 502 posts on Pinterest about chronic pain and found – not surprisingly -- that nearly all referred in some way to the severity of pain.

But rather than just complaining about their pain, many of the posters shared or “pinned” positive tips on self-care and pain management, along with tips for caregivers and friends. About 18% of the posts used humor as a coping mechanism.

“Our findings show that, first of all, people are talking about chronic pain on Pinterest,” Guidry said. “But second of all, our findings show that the vast majority of posts were by individuals.”

Relatively few of the posts originated with healthcare or public health organizations, and researchers said there was “cause for concern” about the lack of information from reputable health sources. A key finding was that posts about chronic pain on Pinterest have a higher level of user engagement than most other healthcare topics.

“Knowing that this conversation about chronic pain is taking place on Pinterest, health communication professionals should consider using Pinterest [more] because they can really reach out to the people who are trying to manage chronic pain,” Guidry said.

Pinterest has about 250 million active users and 80 percent of them are women. Guidry says the social media platform could be leveraged more to communicate with pain sufferers.

“Is it the biggest platform for these kind of topics? No, but it’s obvious it’s being used,” she said. “And it’s an outlet we should use as health communicators.

“When you look at these Pinterest posts, you see people trying to manage pain and trying to help each other and trying to provide support to each other. That is something that could be turned into an effective tool for health care providers and for communicators.”

Guidry said the study’s findings are encouraging because they suggest that people with chronic pain are posting about healthy coping mechanisms and other people are engaging with them.

“Chronic pain posts have a strong presence on Pinterest, and health care professionals should both consider utilizing the platform in order to reach a population they might not otherwise reach, as well as broadening this field of study to determine a clearer picture of the potential uses of this and other social media platforms,” she said.

To visit PNN on Pinterest, click here.

Ambroxol: A Potential New Treatment for Chronic Pain

By A Rahman Ford, PNN Columnist

Researchers say a drug long used in cough syrup and cold medicines shows potential for treating some types of neuropathic pain.

A small study recently published in the journal Headache found that topical administration of ambroxol in a cream could significantly decrease pain in patients with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic facial condition that can make even routine tasks such as brushing one’s teeth excruciatingly painful. 

In their review of the medical records of five trigeminal neuralgia patients, German researchers reported that all five patients experienced pain reduction with ambroxol 20% cream being applied within 30 minutes of a pain flare, with pain relief lasting from 4 to 6 hours.  In one case, pain was eliminated completely in one week.  

The results were similar to those of previous German studies and were so significant that researchers recommended that ambroxol “should be investigated further as a matter of urgency.”

Similarly, a recent study in the journal Pain Management found that application of topical ambroxol reduced spontaneous pain in several patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), a little understood nerve condition that causes chronic pain after a significant injury or surgery.  Notably, ambroxol therapy improved several other neuropathy-related conditions in CRPS patients, including edema, allodynia, hyperalgesia, skin reddening, motor dysfunction and skin temperature.

An Old Drug with a New Purpose

With a pharmacological history that can be traced back to Indian ayurvedic medicine, ambroxol was initially approved in 1978 as a medication to break down mucus and make it easier to eliminate by coughing.  It is generally administered in tablet or syrup form. 

Ambroxol is also used to treat a sore throat associated with pharyngitis, thus its potential role as a potent local anesthetic.  The drug’s anesthetic properties stem from its ability to block sodium and calcium channels that transmit pain signals.

Although the idea that ambroxol can treat a sore throat is widely accepted, its application to other forms of pain is more recent.  

Previous studies using animal models of neuropathic pain have been promising.  In a 2005 study, researchers effectively reduced – and in some cases eliminated – chronic neuropathic and inflammatory pain in rats. Indian researchers also found ambroxol effective in treating neuropathic pain in rats, attributing its success to its antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties.  Unfortunately, human studies are few at this point.

Ambroxol and Fibromyalgia

A 2017 Clinical Rheumatology study showed that ambroxol can play a key role in treating chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia.  As reported by Fibromyalgia News Today, researchers from Mexico added ambroxol to the treatment regimens of 25 fibromyalgia patients, three times a day for one month.  At the end of the study, pain scores decreased significantly and there was also noticeable improvement in sleep disturbances, stiffness and autonomic nervous system dysfunction.  No major adverse events were reported. 

Another 2017 study supported these findings, with the authors concluding that “fibromyalgia treatment with ambroxol should be systematically investigated” because the drug “is the only treatment option used thus far that has the potential to address not just individual but all of the aforementioned aspects of pain.”

Although data on its effectiveness in humans are limited, ambroxol shows great potential in treating painful conditions for which there are currently few safe and effective options.  It is particularly attractive because it has few significant side effects, is not addictive and can be administered topically in some instances.

A. Rahman Ford, PhD, is a lawyer and research professional. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and the Howard University School of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Howard Law Journal. He earned his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rahman lives with chronic inflammation in his digestive tract and is unable to eat solid food.

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.