Ouch! Who hasn’t felt the effects of a paper cut and then cursed the gods or themselves for the injury? But have you ever wondered why they hurt so much? A professor of family medicine explains why.
The way opioids work on the brain makes finding non-opioid treatments for addiction very challenging.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Two neuroscientists explain the cruel chemistry of opioid addiction and why this crisis could last a lifetime.
Instructor Sensei Giuseppe of Kids Kicking Cancer Italy, teaching a young cancer patient in Bergamo, Italy, on June 6, 2018.
Elimelech Goldberg/Kids Kicking Cancer Italy
Children with cancer often experience terrible pain. Adults who treat them are determined to lessen their suffering. Can the lessons from helping kids with cancer pain inform treatment for adults in pain?
Physical therapists Steven Hunter and Laura Hayes teach an unidentified patient lumbar stabilization exercises at the Equal Access Clinic in Gainesville, Florida.
Maria Belen Farias, UF Health Photography
As the nation grapples with its opioid addiction epidemic, one solution for many with chronic joint pain and back pain could be physical therapy. But it’s often underutilized. Here’s why.
The U.S. has the highest daily opioid use rate in the world.
Kimberly Boyles/shutterstock
Most countries need to find a happy balance between the American attitude that all pain needs to be cured – and the ethos in other countries that pain is to be endured.
Tao Che, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Scientists have taken atomic resolution snapshots of an opioid receptor interacting with a drug. Now they are using these images to design “biased” opioids that block pain without the dangerous side effects.
As doctors have learned more about the types of pain, they can better tailor treatment.
Dundanim/Shutterstock.com
As knowledge of pain and the highly addictive nature of opioids has grown, so has the knowledge grown about pain and its origins. A pain specialist explains the intricacies, and how treatment is changing as a result.
Pain of the sick: ‘Anatomy of Expression,’ by Sir Charles Bell, 1806.
Wellcome Collection
In today’s opioid crisis, why are some people with addictions treated with empathy and others with disdain? The answer to that question has roots in the 19th century.