The proceedings at the American Academy of Pain Medicine‘s annual meeting last week haven’t been reported on widely, but there has been news on a few topics of interest to chronic headache patients.
Opioid Blood Levels in High Dose, Chronic Pain Patients
Higher than expected opioid blood concentrations in pain patients treated with opioid therapies lead a pain medicine researcher to suggest that monitoring opioid blood concentration become routine clinical practice.Cardiac Pacemaker and Spinal Cord Stimulator. Do they Interfere?
Electrical device-to-device interference was not found between implantable dual chamber pacemakers and modern spinal cord stimulators.Not Enough Evidence for Pulse Radiofrequency Therapy in Chronic Spine Pain
Although radiofrequency therapy is a very effective tool to control chronic spine pain when done correctly, non-destructive pulsed radiofrequency therapy does not have enough evidence to support its use, according to a presentation here at the American Academy of Pain Medicine’s annual meeting.New Compact Neurostimulation Programming Platform Provides Easy-to-use Interface, Enhanced Graphics and Significant Programming Advances
“The new Rapid Programmer 3.0 empowers clinicians to deliver more efficient and effective patient care and is designed to decrease the average postoperative programming time,” said Chris Chavez, president of Advanced Neuromodulation Systems. “For the first time, clinicians have the ability to test and make real-time changes to multiple areas of stimulation coverage.”
Are any of these procedures done for headaches?
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Monitoring opioid levels in blood is something any doctor can do. Nerve stimulation is available (see the nerve stimulation category for more information), but is expensive and invasive. Radiofrequency is used, which is something a pain specialist could talk to you about. From the article, non-destructive pulsed radiofrequency therapy doesn’t sound like it’s worth it for headache.
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