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Often debilitating, chronic pain is one of the most common reasons individuals seek medical help. Between 67 to 88 percent of them also suffer from sleep disturbances, including longer and more frequent nocturnal awakenings and poorer sleep quality. Because chronic pain and sleep are thought to be correlated, treatment of one could be beneficial to the other. One such treatment is spinal cord stimulation, which shows mounting evidence it improves aspects of sleep and has demonstrated efficacy in treating a multitude of chronic pain conditions. This treatment involves an implantable spinal cord stimulator that sends low levels of electricity directly...

On Sunday, former Walmart CEO Bill Simon joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to warn Americans of the detrimental impact corporate layoffs could have on the U.S.'s feeble economy. "It's crazy right now. We're stuck in this loop of, wage inflation, product inflation, and cost inflation. And it's just that cycle keeps going. And I think, unfortunately, an inevitable byproduct of some of the Fed's moves and as the necessary medicine we have to take to kind of cool things down and get the inflation back under control on some of these layoffs that are coming," Simon explained to co-host Will...

Marijuana appears to have the same pain-relieving effect as a placebo — or fake pill. However, researchers say media outlets continue to cover these medical trials about cannabis-based therapies positively, regardless of the outcomes. The findings come from a review of 20 clinical studies which examined the pain-relieving benefits of using marijuana involving more than 1,500 participants. Although previous studies have claimed that cannabis may help patients manage chronic pain, researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found that those taking placebos experienced the same level of pain relief as those consuming active cannabinoid substances. “We see that cannabis studies...

OK, I've been living with severe low back pain for about 7 years now. Physical Therapy was a joke, Steroid injections, nope. Epidurals? Nope. Laminectomy? Did some but not enough. RF nerve ablation? Catastrophe. Now they want me to try an electronic implant. And thereby hangs a tale. One doctor is pushing Medtronic, another doctor (in the same medical group!) says no, Abbot Labs is the same but has much better support. So I asks you - anybody have experience with either of them? Comments?

Chronic pain is not a topic that comes up often in casual conversation. But, maybe it should — because millions of Americans live with it every day. In fact, this condition, which causes sufferers to experience protracted and often debilitating pain for weeks, months or even years, affects about 20 percent of American adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That comes to roughly 50 million people. The prevalence of chronic pain has also led to nearly $300 billion in lost productivity annually. Since September happens to be chronic pain awareness month, it’s an especially important...

It's estimated that more than 107,000 people in the United States died due to opioid overdoses in 2021. Washington Post journalist Scott Higham notes it's "the equivalent of a 737 Boeing crashing and burning and killing everybody on board every single day." In the new book, American Cartel, Higham and co-author Sari Horwitz make the case that the pharmaceutical industry operated like a drug cartel, with manufacturers at the top; wholesalers in the middle; and pharmacies at the level of "street dealers." What's more, Higham says, the companies collaborated with each other — and with lawyers and lobbyists — to...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struggled to provide a coherent answer on how President Joe Biden will address skyrocketing gas prices during a press briefing Tuesday and started to say the president is trying to "elevate" Americans' pain. Jean-Pierre made a verbal error that American citizens may find painfully funny: "The president has been very clear in making sure that he does everything that he can to elevate—to alleviate the pain that American families are feeling when it comes to gas prices." Gas prices have risen astronomically, putting massive financial pressure on working Americans. Her gaffe was quickly picked...

I recently discontinued cable TV, which also provided phone service. I decided to get a wireline service, mostly because it works when the power goes off. Problem: 99% of the calls are robocalls. I looked into how to stop this, which (according to the internet) is expensive, difficult, and something about which the FCC and the rest of the State is powerless. This seems absurd to me. Why can't this practice be outlawed, and its practitioners be executed?

The scientists behind the invention say a mechanical hand fitted with the smart skin showed a remarkable ability to learn to react to external stimuli such as a jab in the palm. It uses a new type of processing system based on 'synaptic transistors, which mimics the brain's neural pathways in order to learn' to feel pain. Experts have been working for decades to build artificial skin with touch sensitivity, with one widely-explored method featuring an array of contact sensors across an electronic skin's surface to allow it detect when it comes into contact with an object. But these sensors...

How stupid are today’s monetary and fiscal policies (and not just the batshit insanity that is Helicopter money, a/k/a MMT?) So stupid that in Japan, the government is about to spend billions to “ease inflation pain” that is the result of… spending billions.According to the Nikkei, Japan plans to spend 6.2 trillion yen ($48.2 billion) on – get this – gasoline subsidies, low-interest loans and cash assistance “to alleviate the pain of consumers and small businesses facing rising prices”, which were caused by, well, massive government spending. The government frames the economic package, to be compiled as early as Tuesday,...

Friends and Freepers, since collectively you know everything there is to know I wonder if any of you have experience with debilitating pain from hip Joint bursitis? Nothing the doctors have tried so far has worked. No arthritis involved.

Once again, we see the conservative pundit class go bananas over the new motion filings from the Durham investigation in the last few days. Suddenly, everybody at Fox News is "expecting more indictments" at any moment! (How did that turn out for Sean Hannity and Dan Bongino the last time?) Suddenly, everybody is supposed to be excited that Durham�s crack team finally figured out spying activities against Donald Trump that occurred in July 2016.This is a mistake.The first question you should be asking yourself is why it took the Justice Department almost 6 years to figure out those spying activities....

Those hoping to avoid one of the worst side effects of aging—bone, joint and muscle pain that doesn't go away—might need to exercise a lot harder and more often than previously believed. According to a new study, only high levels of activity at least once a week—playing tennis, running, swimming, digging with a spade, or doing hard physical labor as part of your job—appears to help ward off chronic musculoskeletal pain in the long-term. The study is the first to examine the experience of chronic pain alongside gender, BMI, age and wealth over a long time period. Report co-author Dr....

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered that a particular molecular signaling pathway plays an important role in producing osteoarthritis (OA) pain. Using a mouse model of painful osteoarthritis, they show that blocking this signaling pathway eliminates pain and results in a return to normal limb use. This work is the first to find an association between this pathway and OA pain, and could lead to the development of new, effective pain treatments for human OA sufferers. Over 32.5 million U.S. adults suffer from painful OA, making it the most common joint disorder in the country. The incidence of...

The left image shows a knee joint in a healthy rat. (White indicates cartilage.) The second image from the left shows a joint with grade 2 untreated osteoarthritis. The third image shows a joint with osteoarthritis that has worsened from grade 2 to grade 4 after six weeks of placebo therapy. The right image shows a joint with osteoarthritis that improved from grade 2 to grade 1 (mild) after six weeks of combination therapy with alphaKlotho and sTGFbR2. Credit: Salk Institute ***************************************************************** A combination of two previously studied osteoarthritis drugs works better than either drug alone. People with osteoarthritis, or...

1Translational Research in Pain Program, Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States 2Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States 3Department of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States 4Comparative Pain Research and Education Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States 5Thurston Arthritis Center, UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, United States 6Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Translational Pain Research, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States ************************************************************************ Osteoarthritis (OA) associated pain...

University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed a new procedure to treat a painful foot condition called plantar fasciitis. A patient’s own fat is injected into the foot via dozens of small injections in a grid pattern. VIDEO at link................ Credit: Beth Gusenoff and Jeffrey Gusenoff A novel technique that transplants a patient’s own fat into the sole of their foot could offer relief to those suffering from a common and painful condition called plantar fasciitis, according to University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. In a pilot study, published today in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and led by a wife-and-husband...

Music video by Meat Loaf performing Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are. © 1993

The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is topping sales charts. To expose Fauci’s cruel experiments with children, Kennedy cites the BBC’s Guinea Pig Kids. This documentary is again under attack, and that in itself invites a review.Since 1984, Dr. Anthony Fauci has headed the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health. In 1992, Fauci’s NIAID provided funding for the Incarnation Children’s Center (ICC) in New York as an outpatient clinic for HIV-positive children. The city’s...

Researchers at the University of Arizona Health Sciences are closer to developing a safe and effective non-opioid pain reliever after a study showed that a new compound they created reduces the sensation of pain by regulating a biological channel linked to pain. Most people experience pain at some point in their lives, and the National Institutes of Health estimates 100 million people in the U.S. suffer from chronic pain. Approximately 21-29% of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them and 8-12% of people using an opioid for chronic pain develop an opioid use disorder, according to the National Institute...