Free Republic

An ancient folk remedy for chronic pain could be buzzing into mainstream markets. Axis Clinical Trials in Los Angeles is testing honey bee venom for treatment of osteoarthritis. Dr. Lydie Hazan spoke to CBS2′s Lisa Sigell about her experience treating patients with Apimed, otherwise known as standardized and purified “venom in a vial”. “We were contracted by a pharmaceutical company which is based in Korea. They decided they wanted this product marketed in the United States,” she said. “We inject it locally in the knees of patients that are afflicted with osteoarthritis.” Patients are monitored for months to see if...

Hi all, Last night I spent 8 hours in the ER and am still in pain. I'm also mad about the whole thing. Obviously, though, I'm healthy enough to type on my iPad! Any insight is appreciated. For the last 3 weeks or so I have had a dull pain right below the bottom of my ribcage on the left side. At times it would become sharp, like a stabbing pain and I would not be be able to take a deep breath during that time. I would cringe in pain during these times. After a while it would go...

The city clerk’s office has informed KRQE-TV that there’s been a record number for early voting on a proposed ordinance. What has caused over 23,000 people to vote as of this morning? The city of Albuquerque’s “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance,” which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, the juncture by which science shows the unborn child can experience pain. Early voting ends November 15th and Election Day is November 19th. (There is also a run-off election in one city council district that will give the city a new councilor.) There are four known late abortion centers in the...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has turned off its entire website in response to the government shutdown, leaving farmers, reporters and others with no way to access any of the agency’s information online. A visit to usda.gov sends readers to a “funding lapse” page that reads, “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. After funding has been restored, please allow some time for this website to become available again.” USDA’s total website shutdown goes far beyond the response of other federal agencies, and seems to be part of an effort to make people feel...

Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans. There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for ObamaCare. This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record. As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either....

Patients should not be prescribed long-acting or extended-release opioid pain relievers unless they need daily, round-the-clock care for pain that can't be managed by any other means, the Food and Drug Administration has told doctors. The new guidelines - meant to stem the country's growing epidemic of opioid abuse and addiction - will not place formal new restrictions on prescriptions by physicians, but administration officials hope to chasten physicians who prescribe the medications for anything other than ongoing, intractable pain.

Over the past decade NRL News and NRL News Today have collectively carried dozens and dozens and DOZENS of articles about the topic of the capacity of the unborn child to feel pain. So when colleagues tell you on your return to work of a must-read article, the first temptation might be to expect too little rather than too much. But after reading Eric Schulzke’s “The disputed science of fetal pain,” I can see why they say the article is balanced—a rarity—and comprehensive—even rarer.Schulzke cleverly works backwards. He starts with newborns who were born premature. Their parents are absolutely convinced...

The next four years are likely to be unpleasant. There are already several crises heading towards us, and in the fiscal, monetary, regulatory and general economic areas the Barack Obama administration's policy is likely to be counterproductive. In these circumstances, there's only one sound course of action for the Republican congressional majority: they must abandon all their natural politicians' preference for avoiding short-term pain and adopt a root-canal approach, welcoming short-term economic pain for the sake of preserving the US economy intact for better times ahead. For the past four years, Obama's trillion-dollar deficits and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's...

Here we sit on the good ship USA sailing merily along. We have tried repeatedly to tell passengers that there is an ice berg dead ahead, a fiscal cliff, Greece, etc. Despite our warnings they have not and will not listen to us. We have tried to tell the people about the pain being caused to them. Again, they will not and have not listened. Instead, they voted to not only stay on the ship but to stay on course. Understanding how (some) of the electorate got there is important. In my opinion some of it starts with the nature...

'Warrington's Paul Wood lost a testicle after sustaining an agonising injury in the Super League Grand Final. Remarkably, the prop played on after rupturing a testicle early in the second half of the match, which Warrington lost 26-18 to Leeds at Old Trafford. Wood even conducted media interviews after the game before going to hospital where he was operated on. He tweeted late on Saturday night to fellow rugby league star Leon Pryce: "Ruptured my right testicle mate, got a knee 1 minute into the second half, had to have it removed tonight." He joked on Sunday: "Just coming out...

Recognizing that prior to "viability" a fetus experiences pain during an abortion, and that the Arizona statute does not prohibit abortions necessary for the health of pregnant women, the court rejected a challenge to the law.By Order released on July 30th, Federal District Judge James A. Teilborg declined to hold an Arizona statute limiting abortions during and following the twentieth week of pregnancy unconstitutional. State restrictions such as those imposed by Arizona, but after the beginning of the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, had been said to be permissible in Roe v. Wade almost forty years ago. Although I consider the...

Do you love fishing as I do? Did you give it up because of fibromyalgia? Instead of giving up, start preparing before you go! I have been fishing again for the last three years. I have specific things to take with me, and if you make a list, it will be no problem getting back to the sport you love!

Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes. That's enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin. And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year, thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients who are suffering. As more people get their hands on these potentially-dangerous drugs, more are taking them to get high. Their drug abuse leads to 14,800 deaths a year --...

Injections of an enzyme called PAP into an acupuncture point behind the knees of mice relieved pain caused by inflammation for up to six days, Julie Hurt and Mark Zylka of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill report online April 23 in Molecular Pain. That’s almost 100 times longer than pain relief from acupuncture, which typically lasts about 1½ hours. Long-lasting pain relief “is truly important, clinically,” says Maiken Nedergaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester in New York. She and colleagues previously demonstrated that inserting and manipulating acupuncture needles causes the body to release a chemical...

A suburban Chicago man accidentally shot a 3.25in (8.25cm) nail into his skull but is recovering after doctors successfully removed it from the centre of his brain. Dante Autullo, 34, was in his workshop when a nail gun recoiled near his head. But he had no idea the nail had entered his brain until the next day, when he began feeling nauseous.

Can an all-natural dietary supplement from tobacco plants help ease your chronic pain? Yes, according to the makers of a product called "Anatabloc." * * * Anatabloc, which comes in pill or lozenge form, is based on a substance called "Anatabine" that comes from tobacco plants. That's right tobacco. After you take a pill, it enters your body and interacts with a protein in your cells. The resulting cell adopts a natural anti-inflammatory process in the body. Researchers say it's very effective and promising in the battle against chronic pain.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's budget director said Monday that the president's new deficit-reduction plan would impose "a lot of pain," and is clearly true of White House proposals to cut $320 billion from projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid in the coming decade. Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. He would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services. And he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid.

71-year-old Gullan Holmgren from Piteå, in northern Sweden, is 'too old' for pain rehab, according to the pain rehabilitation unit at the local hospital that turned her away. “I might be over 70, but that doesn't mean I am dead yet,” said an outraged Holmgren to The Local. Holmgren, who has had chronic pain after an unsuccessful hip operation six years ago, sought help through her primary care provider, the local clinic in Piteå where she lives. After trying all sorts of pain relief to no avail, her doctor referred her to the pain rehabilitation unit at Sunderby Hospital. Holmgren...

I finally completed a project that has been on my bucket list for years. I am celebrating completing my first novel. I'm now an author!!!!

For many in the West pain ends with a pill, but elsewhere the war on drugs is cutting people off from pain medication. For much of the Western world, physical pain ends with a simple pill. Yet more than half the world's countries have little to no access to morphine, the gold standard for treating medical pain. Freedom from Pain shines a light on this under-reported story. "For a victim of police torture, they will usually sign a confession and the torture stops," says Diederik Lohman of Human Rights Watch in the film. "For someone who has cancer pain, that...