The Week In Pain Review. March 08.
Updated: Jan 15
Here are some activities / articles that have come to my awareness over the last week.
Proactive Pain Solutions on Clubhouse
Clubhouse is an exciting new platform for discussion on various topics. Members are free to join various conversations about just about anything. I joined a small discussion about pain management and we brain-stormed as to how to engage others (pain providers, non-pain specialists, and even those individuals with pain) on the topics of pain. One challenge is to how to make pain management education more readily assessible and able to be transformed into clinical practice.
If you are on Clubhouse, why don't you consider following 'Proactive Pain Solutions' and you will receive notifications of when we're up for another conversation. I anticipate there may be other groups discussing pain management. If you know of a group that might be of interest to us in the pain management world, drop a comment below.
Pediatric patients need appropriate pain management after surgery - an article by Rita Agarwal MD, Stephen Hays MD, Vidya Chidambaran MD March 8, 2021
Commenting on 'Guidelines for opioid prescribing in children and adolescents after surgery' in JAMA November 11, 2020.
Here are a few take-away points:
1 'While opioid-free recovery is ideal, it is frequently not feasible especially for extremely painful procedures.'
- use acetaminophen and / or ibuprofen unless contraindicated
- consider interventional therapies such as nerve blocks
- opioid-free recovery is not supported by clinical evidence
2 'Inadequate pain management impacts healing and recovery; poorly controlled acute postoperative pain is a predisposing factor for chronic post-surgical pain.'
3 'While opioid addiction and diversion among adults is well-documented and its devastating impacts are far-reaching, research shows that while some adolescents may misuse opioids and other controlled substances they are in the minority'.
The concern is that the paper in question will discourage the appropriate use of opioids, though that wasn't the intent of the authors.
While we cannot undertreat pain, we also cannot go back to the practice of over-prescribing or unnecessarily prescribing opioids for minor operations.
There needs to be continued parent and patient education about expectations for recovery post-surgery and proper pain management.
Check out the full article here:
https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/rita-agarwal-stephen-hays-and-vidya-chidambaram
Here is the JAMA article
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2772855
Do you have any thoughts about the opinions in either one of these articles? This is a challenging topic to consider and I think it's important to share our thoughts for better understanding. Make a comment below.
Dolor Infantil
This website developed by Dra. Tania Garcia Abreu is dedicated to pain management for children. This is yet another example of a group of dedicated individuals from all over the world joining together for the purpose to decrease pain and suffering in children and adults.
One look at her website will show you that regardless of our physical location, individuals deal with the same types of pain problems. And there are individuals that seek to provide the best care possible. Check out the website here: https://dolorinfantil.com/en/
Translation available into the English language.
We are interested in sharing information about pediatric and adult pain management. If you know of an organization dedicated to improvements in pain management, won't you share the information on this website by dropping a comment below? Together we can make some very positive changes in pain management and raise awareness but only if we make connections with one another.
Are there pain management topics that you have found this week of interest? Drop a comment below so we can check it out!