First responders are the ones to help the public during traumatic and dangerous situations providing physical and emotional support. However, while helping others, first responders are continually exposing themselves to disasters, death, grief, injury, pain, loss and highly stressful situations, which are all triggers for causing PTSD. Add in the risk to personal safety, long [...]
Originally created over 50 years ago as a surgical pain reliever and sedative, ketamine has long been regarded as a mysterious and potentially dangerous drug when used outside of these applications. Its unfortunate history as a street drug and the associated risks of its illicit use have yielded a reputation that causes many patients to [...]
Dealing with chronic pain can be difficult. Regardless of the source of your pain, it can feel as if there are few options for relief - and even fewer that aren’t stigmatized. While opiate medications may be used with success in some patients, others do not tolerate them well. Worse yet, many patients do tolerate [...]
It seems that every few years, medical science attempts to outdo itself by introducing or rebranding a new “wonder drug”. These medications are often multitasking miracle workers that can solve multiple problems depending on the dosage. An example might be aspirin, which can relieve pain, control fevers, thin blood, and even reduce the severity of [...]
For those suffering from chronic pain, the number of available treatment options can seem very limited. Opiate drugs carry both risks and stigma, while other methods may be ineffective in both the short-term and the long-term. Thankfully, new approaches are constantly being tested - and one has shown recent promise in pain relief and management [...]
We flippantly talk about being "OCD", when we clean excessively or organize our desk in a certain way. Most of us think of OCD only as a personality quirk. But few of us give much thought to what people with OCD struggle with. From germ obsessions to reorganizing belongings exhaustively, obsessive-compulsive behavior takes a toll [...]
Ketamine is an effective treatment for people with chronic pain condition. If you have tried other medications or treatments without any success, or you plan to get surgery to fix the problem, then ketamine should be a serious consideration. The treatment helps manage conditions such as cancer, neuropathic pain, pain from a spinal injury, phantom [...]
People who suffer from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) often feel as if they have had their lives taken from them. What was once a simple task may become a difficult maneuver - or even impossible with the kind of pain they suffer from. It can really alter the way a person lives their life. [...]
For most people, pain has an identifiable cause. You sustain an injury or suffer from an illness and the result is pain that you know the origin of. Because of that knowledge, you can treat the pain - or at least bear it, since you understand why it is happening. Neuropathic pain is different. This [...]
Chronic pain is described as persistent pain that carries on beyond the healing period of an injury or illness, or pain that continues for longer than 12 weeks. Sometimes the pain can last for months or even years. Living with such kind of pain can be really debilitating and can quickly deteriorate a person's quality [...]
