PAINS Policy Brief #4: Opioid Treatment Agreements or “Contracts” – Insert
Pain care in the United States presents a complex set of challenges. On the one hand, there is ample documentation that pain, especially chronic pain, is often not well managed, and that as the Institute of Medicine has stated, we need a “cultural transformation in how pain is judged, managed and treated” to advance pain More Info »
Travel Document: Medical Summary
Download this helpful tool when planning your trip. Place one copy in your luggage and another on your person with your important documents (passport, etc.).
In Case of Emergency (ICE) Form
Download this helpful ICE form designed for chronic pain patients in mind.
Adult Coloring Sheet – Zebra – Ehlers-Danlos
The Ehlers-Danlos Society (EDS) and The Pain Community (TPC) are collaborating on a fun Ehlers-Danlos Awareness Month challenge. We invite you to a coloring challenge using our Zebra image (download below). Print off the picture of our Zentangled Zebra below and color it using your choice of medium; crayons, markers, gel pens, watercolors or colored More Info »
A Guide to Optimizing Treatment Through Integrative Health for People Living with Pain
When you break your leg, undergo surgery, or burn your hand, you experience pain – acute pain. With treatment and time, the pain usually disappears. But chronic pain is different. It hangs around even after the original illness or injury has improved, reminding you every day that it has no plans to vacate the premises. More Info »
Eight Opioid Safety Principles for Patients and Caregivers
Never take an opioid pain medication that is not prescribed to you Never adjust your own doses Never mix with alcohol Taking sleep aids or anti-anxiety medications together with opioid pain medication can be dangerous Always tell your healthcare provider about all medications you are taking from any source Keep track of when you take More Info »
Eight Opioid Prescribing Principles for Providers
Help Minimize Harm When Prescribing Opioids and Other Psychotherapeutics Assess patients for risk of abuse before starting opioid therapy and manage accordingly Watch for and treat comorbid mental disease if present Conventional conversion tables can cause harm and should be used cautiously when rotating (switching) from one opioid to another Avoid combining benzodiazepines with opioids, More Info »
Maximizing Safety with Methadone & Other Opioids
Opioids provide life-saving analgesia for the millions of Americans who suffer with chronic pain, yet overdose deaths are rising at an alarming rate, with methadone implicated to a disproportionate degree [Paulozzi et al. 2006; Webster 2005; Warner et al. 2009]. Methadone deaths increased almost seven-fold from 790 in 1999 to 5,420 in 2006, rising faster More Info »
Oral Methadone Dosing for Chronic Pain: A Practitioner’s Guide
Methadone has emerged as a good choice for the management of cancer pain and chronic non-cancer pain both as a first-line medication and as a replacement opioid. Particular cautions must be observed as methadone’s pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics are unique among opioids. Milligram for milligram, however, methadone is much more powerful than morphine, although there is More Info »
Commonsense Opioid-Risk Management in Chronic Noncancer Pain: A Clinician’s Perspective
Chronic noncancer pain (CNP) is a serious and likely undertreated public health problem. In a 2005 survey, 19% of US adults reported chronic pain and 34% reported recurrent pain [Kuehn 2007]. The annual costs of pain-related healthcare, litigation, and compensation are estimated at $100 billion in the United States alone [Sinatra 2006]. While opioids have More Info »