Posts Tagged ‘pain relief’

49 States Adopt Prescription Drug Database to Prevent Prescription Drug Abuse

Aug
2014
04

posted by | on health, medicine, social media | No comments

AJGpr client, Dr. Norman Marcus, author of End Back Pain Forever: A Groundbreaking Approach to Eliminate Your Suffering and founder of  The Norman Marcus Pain Institute, recently posted a blog about the growing problem of prescription drug addiction and misuse and what government is doing about it.  Here it is.

49 States Adopt Prescription Drug Database to Prevent Prescription Drug Abuse by Dr. Norman Marcus

Because of the growing problem of addiction, misuse, and diversion, 49 states have now adopted a state prescription drug database. You may have read an article recently in The New York Times about Missouri being the only state that has not adopted such a database. In New York, as a prescriber of controlled substances, each time a patient is prescribed any type of controlled substance, I must log into the NYS website to confirm that a patient is not receiving other medications from other doctors.

I found a few patients who had not been honest with me and had received medications from other doctors. Unfortunately, the small occurrence of dishonest behavior has obliged all doctors to be alert for the possible misuse of medication.  At the Norman Marcus Pain Institute, I implement several rules for patients receiving any type of controlled substance from me. Here are a few of them:

• Only one physician can prescribe all pain medications.

• Only one pharmacy should be used to obtain all pain related medications.

• All medications, including herbal remedies and over the counter medications, need to be reported since all medications can interact with one another.

• Medications must be kept in a safe and secure place, such as a locked cabinet or safe.

Following these simple rules will help protect my patients and their families from improper use of pain medication.

 

 

Tennis Elbow Causing You Pain? PRP is NOT the Solution Study Shows

Jul
2014
21

posted by | on health, medicine, web | No comments

AJGpr client, Dr. Norman Marcus, author of End Back Pain Forever: A Groundbreaking Approach to Eliminate Your Suffering and founder of  The Norman Marcus Pain Institute, recently posted a blog entitled http://www.normanmarcuspaininstitute.com/49-states-adopt-prescription-drug-database-to-prevent-prescription-drug-abuse/ Tennis Elbow Causing Your Pain? PRP is NOT the Solution Study Shows.

In this blog he talks about what treatments work to end tennis elbow pain and what don’t. Below is his post.

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Tennis Elbow Causing You Pain? PRP is NOT the Solution Study Shows 

At NMPI, we frequently see patients in our office with pain in their elbow. Most often it’s tennis players who complain of persistent pain in the forearm as the result of overuse from racquet sports but other sports and non-athletic activities can also put you at risk for this condition known as Tennis Elbow (TE), or lateral epicondylitis. Strain related changes in the tendons that join the forearm muscles to the outside of the elbow can be very painful.

I was not surprised to read in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, that a recent study (Strong Evidence Against Platelet-rich Plasma Injections for Chronic Lateral Epicondylar Tendinopathy: A Systematic Review) reported that PRP, which I recently reported as not being effective for hamstring injuries, is now found to be ineffective for persistent Tennis Elbow as well. PRP has been increasingly used for many painful conditions that athletes experience. This is based on the finding that in laboratory animals healing can be induced in damaged tissue if platelets are injected into the injured area. The popularity of PRP for TE has growndespite no strong evidence that it actually works. Sir William Osler, a renowned physician once said “use every new treatment as quickly as possible before it stops working.” At NMPI, we do not rush to use a “new” approach just because it is new. We are committed to eliminating our patients’ pain and preventing its recurrence.

TE is commonly diagnosed by producing pain when pressing on the tendons that attach to the lateral epicondyle along with pain when the wrist is pulled upward (dorsiflexion) against resistance. TE is generally self-limiting but in some patients it may take more than a year to get better with no treatment. When the pain and tenderness persist various treatments have been tried.

Here’s what works:

  • In a 2010 paper, an exercise treatment was found to be very effective in relieving TE pain and tenderness.
  • At NMPI, we treat these tender muscles successfully with a laser or with muscle injections.

Here’s what doesn’t work:

  • Steroids are not recommended since there is no inflammation in TE and steroids can actually damage the tendon.
  • PRP for tennis elbow has been found to not be effective

Newer treatments are often not better. It is always best to first treat any lasting pain problem with the least invasive, safest, and least expensive interventions. This is called the step-care model and the approach you will receive at the Norman Marcus Pain Institute.