Archive | Uncategorized

Opioid Prescriptions — What is a Neurosurgeon’s Responsibility?

Christopher J. Winfree, MD, FAANS; Sharona Ben-Haim, MD | Features AANS Neurosurgeon: Volume 26, Number 3, 2017 The Point position is taken by Sharona Ben-Haim, MD. The Counterpoint position is taken by Christopher J. Winfree, MD, FAANS. Point: Neurosurgeons take care of patients in both acute and chronic pain and should have the capacity to treat […]

Neurosurgeons Rise Up to Address the Opioid Crisis in America

Jennifer A. Sweet, MD; Christopher J. Winfree, MD, FAANS; Jason M. Schwalb, MD, FAANS | Features AANS Neurosurgeon: Volume 26, Number 3, 2017 Organized neurosurgery continues to fight for our ability to provide safe, effective, evidence-based neurosurgical alternatives to manage chronic pain and reduce long-term opioid prescribing. Amidst a nationwide opioid epidemic, the political climate […]

How Technology Is Simplifying Relief Of Chronic Pain

(BPT) – Doctors hate seeing patients suffering from chronic pain, and not just because their instinct is immediately to want to help their patients to feel better. One of the primary challenges doctors confront is that even though chronic pain is common, it can be extremely difficult to diagnose and treat. The condition can be […]

Neurosurgeons Partner with AMA Task Force to Reduce Opioid Abuse

“Consider that every day, 44 Americans die as a result of prescription opioid overdose, and the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths has nearly quadrupled since 2002. In addition, the nation is seeing an increase in opioid-related pediatric exposures and poisonings. There has been a distressing rise in neonatal abstinence syndrome as a result of women […]

Integrating Pain Treatment into Your Spine Practice

Integrating Pain Treatment Into Your Spine Practice is a novel and unique book that fills a longstanding need for a reference on how to combine the business and management aspects with the scientific, evidence-based component of pain care in a spine practice. The book is superbly organized, well thought out, comprehensive, easy to read and […]

The Pain Section Committee creates a new guideline for the use of ONS in refractory occipital neuralgia.

Occipital Nerve Stimulation for the Treatment of Patients With Medically Refractory Occipital Neuralgia: Congress of Neurological Surgeons Systematic Review and Evidence-Based Guideline. Sweet JA, Mitchell LS, Narouze S, Sharan AD, Falowski SM, Schwalb JM, Machado A, Rosenow JM, Petersen EA, Hayek SM, Arle JE, Pilitsis JG. Occipital neuralgia (ON) is a disorder characterized by sharp, […]

PAINS Report by Dr. Jason Schwalb

In 2011, at the request of the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine released its report on “Relieving Pain in America”, click here for the report. The panel that developed this report represented a broad spectrum of experts in pain, including Ken Follett, the Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Nebraska, as well as […]

The FDA’s Dilemma With The Opioid Pain Medication Zohydro ER

Late last year, the FDA approved a long-acting version of the opiate, hydrocodone. Sold as Zohydro ER by Zogenix ZGNX -4.23%, this drug is approved for the management of pain, but is reserved only for use in patients for whom other pain treatments are ineffective or not tolerated. What was surprising about the FDA approval […]

Update – 2013 – Reclassifying Combination Medications

Submitted by Joshua M. Rosenow, MD In January, The FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee voted 19 to 10 in favor of reclassifying combination medications containing hydrocodone from Schedule III drugs under the Controlled Substances Act to Schedule II. This would impose significantly stricter prescribing rules on drugs containing hydrocodone, such as popular […]

FDA allows marketing of first device to relieve migraine headache pain

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of the Cerena Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator (TMS), the first device to relieve pain caused by migraine headaches that are preceded by an aura: a visual, sensory or motor disturbance immediately preceding the onset of a migraine attack… Read the Article >>