Reading the news can be stress-inducing at the best of times. When the news is particularly worrying, many of us experience levels of anxiety so high that we can have difficulty coping. So how can we stay (reasonably) anxiety-free when the media bombards us with headlines that spook us? It…
Family Doctors In Rural America Tackle Crisis Of Addiction And Pain
Dr. Angela Gatzke-Plamann didn’t fully grasp her community’s opioid crisis until one desperate patient called on a Friday afternoon in 2016. “He was in complete crisis because he was admitting to me that he had lost control of his use of opioids,” recalled Gatzke-Plamann. The patient had used opioids for…
U.S. saw big rise in meth, fentanyl use in 2019
A study of over 1 million urine drug tests from across the United States shows soaring rates of use of methamphetamines and fentanyl, often used together in potentially lethal ways. The drug test results came primarily from clinics dealing with primary care, pain management or substance abuse disorders. The results showed that between 2013…
Veterans benefit from pain treatment without drugs
A new study finds a lower risk of adverse post-treatment outcomes among returning military service personnel with chronic pain who received nondrug therapy. Many people returning from military deployment experience physical and mental health issues. These can include chronic pain, post-treatment alcohol use disorder, drug addiction, depression, thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a combination.…
New measures to treat mental illness and opioid use
Opioid use among psychiatric hospital patients needs to be addressed through an integrated approach to managing mental illness, pain and substance use, a study by researchers at the University of Waterloo has found. The study found that 7.5 per cent of 165,434 patients admitted to psychiatric hospitals in Ontario between…