Is it getting hotter? That question can set off a pretty good argument about global warming — an argument we don’t want to have here.

But extreme heat is in the news a lot more.

Just this week, NOAA, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration forecasted sustained heat over the central United States, and 100+ degree temperatures have already been recorded in the Southwest and the Southeast.

Heat is unquestionably a health issue, in fact heat often puts older folks and young children at risk.

For most of us, hot weather means something else…higher energy costs.

The advent of air conditioning has made it tolerable, until you get your monthly utility bill. How many times have you run your air conditioner on a warm day and thought not only about your comfort, but your wallet?

By now almost everyone knows that saving energy also mean saving money. Air-conditioning and heating systems have become much more energy efficient and that’s resulted in some spending less on heating and cooling your home.

What is it that a homeowner wants from his or her air conditioning and heating systems? Energy efficiency, environmental technology, and space-saving comfort for the life they live.

With summer heat looming, a new technology could both keep people comfortable, save energy and money, and help keep people from becoming ill in the extreme heat.

This new advance is called a ductless split system, mini split ductless air conditioning unit and zone control.

One benefit of ductless air conditioning is that you don’t have to install ductwork in your house. It works by refrigerant and electricity flowing into an evaporator unit in the room that’s being cooled. This creates cool air and that is blown into the room by a fan.

Another advantage is that this type of system is very quiet and it provides much greater security than a window mounted unit. Part of the efficiency is that you don’t need to cool or heat rooms in your home that are not being used. This can save money on your electric bill. One of the lifestyle benefits is that the ductless systems are more attractive with your home’s furnishing than a window unit or a box fan.

There are currently systems that are 40% more efficient than window units. That much more efficiency does translate into dollar savings along with greater comfort. This is called Inverter Technology. The manufacturers claim that this is dramatically more efficient than traditional heating and air-conditioning systems.

A quick look at how they work is that they continue to deliver or cool air and adjust to changing conditions and only use as much energy as is needed. Using less energy of course means a lower bill. And again with these systems you can heat or cool certain rooms, the ones you usually occupy, while turning off heating and air-conditioning in the rooms that you do occupy.

The technology of only cooling the rooms that you’re in is called, “Zone Control or Comfort Control.” This may seem pretty simple, but this is setting the temperature for each room in your house with what is essentially, “a remote controller.” Combining this with the inverter driven technology that provides constant and consistent temperatures and with the remote control you have complete control of the environment in your house. Of course turning heating or air conditioning off in a room that you’re not using will save energy and thus money.

Another interesting piece of this technology are sensors that detect temperatures and temperature disparities inside the rooms in your home and then they adjust the airflow to compensate for those variations in temperature. One of the unique features of this is that the sensors are recording temperatures at floor level and ceiling level and scanning the ambient temperature readings in the room.

Heating and air-conditioning contractors along with the major utilities have all said that having consistent temperatures in the rooms are using saves energy all year long.

This new technology allows you to use only the exact amount of energy that you need in your home. And being able to adjust it with a remote control allows you to be much more efficient with your energy and with your money.

This type of comfort control with this new technology allows homeowners to do several important things, save energy therefore saving money, having a more efficient energy delivery system, being comfortable and being able to afford to keep your home cool during this summer that the weather service says is going to be unusually hot. Along with this comfort comes less extreme temperatures in the home along with that less heat related illness.

The use of so-called “study” drugs by teenagers is increasing, but you wouldn’t know by asking their parents.

A new report by the University of Michigan found that one in ten teens are taking a prescription stimulant or amphetamine in the belief it will give them an academic edge.  Many do it without the knowledge of the parents — only one in 100 parents believes their kid has used a study drug.

Study drugs are stimulant medications typically prescribed for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Commonly prescribed medicines in this category include Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin, and Vyvanse.

“Taking these medications when they are not prescribed for you can lead to acute exhaustion, abnormal heart rhythms and even confusion and psychosis if the teens get addicted and go into withdrawal,” said Matthew Davis, MD., director of the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“What we found in this poll is a clear mismatch between what parents believe and what their kids are reporting,” said Davis. “But even though parents may not be recognizing these behaviors in their own kids, this poll also showed that one half of the parents say they are very concerned about this abuse in their communities.”

White parents were most likely to say they are “very concerned” (54%), followed by black (38%) and Hispanic/Latino (37%) parents.

Despite that concern, only 27 percent of parents polled said they have talked to their teens about using study drugs. More black parents were likely to have that discussion with their teens (41%) than white or Hispanic parents (27% and 17%).

About eight out of ten parents would support a school policy to requiring students with a prescription for ADHD medications to keep them in a secure location such as the school nurse’s office. That requirement would discourage students from carrying drugs that could be shared with or sold to other students.

“If we are going to make a dent in this problem, and truly reduce the abuse of these drugs, we need parents, educators, health care professionals and all who interact with teens to be more proactive about discussing the issue,” said Davis.

“We know teens may be sharing drugs or spreading the word that these medications can give their grades a boost. But the bottom line is that these prescription medications are drugs, and teens who use them without a prescription are taking a serious risk with their health.”

This latest survey comes less than one month after a report by the Partnership at Drugfree.org uncovered a significant increase in the abuse of stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall. About one in eight teens (13%) said they had taken an ADHD drug that was not prescribed for them.

Adding to that troubling trend is that nearly one-third of parents actually believe that stimulants used to treat ADHD can improve a teen’s academic performance even if the teen does not have ADHD.

About one in four teens (26%) believe that prescription drugs can be used as a study aid.

Children are most susceptible to allergies. Spring is one of the worst times for plant pollen allergies. Some doctors call Spring and Summer, “peak allergy season.”

“Food and skin allergies are on the rise and respiratory allergies are the most common type of allergy affecting children,” according to a report from the CDC published on May 2, 2013. There was a greater number of food and respiratory allergies with increased income, according to co-author LaJeana Howie, from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC.

The problem may not be the pollen. The problem might be right in your home. The negative effects of dust mites, animal dander, and dust are getting more and more attention.

Allergens can be in the carpet and also in the heating and air-conditioning vents in the family home. In some cases the quality of the air outside is not as bad as the air inside the home.

Children’s immune systems are still developing and so when a child sneezes or coughs and it’s not a cold or a virus that’s a sign that dust and other allergens may have reached a critical point in your home. It can take adults longer to show the symptoms of dust, dander and pollen allergies.

“Allergy Moms” say that taking care of a child with allergies is always a challenge because they never feel sure footed, the sand is always shifting. Even if a child has severe allergies such as a food allergy to peanuts or dairy it’s not unusual for the child to be allergic to many other different things to varying degrees. Even though and allergy mom may have “allergy proofed” their own home there’s always a good chance that air with allergens is going to come into the home and then be spread through the heating and air conditioning ducts.

Mark Masters, president of a professional carpet and duct cleaning company, says that the most common items they find in the home duct system are leftovers from the construction process. This can include dust from drywall, sawdust, concrete dust, as well as pollens and air particulates that were deposited during construction. Many of these particulates could be an allergen for a child, adult, or senior.

After you’ve taken your children or yourself to your family doctor there are other steps you can take that will mitigate the effects of these allergens. One important action you can take is to have your cooling and heating air ducts cleaned by a professional.

Another step you can take is an allergen filter system. Some of the better systems feature multistage allergen filtration. This type of system will remove allergens, particulates and contaminants by using a fan that runs continuously and circulates the air. Combined with an anti-allergen filter that effectively traps dust, allergens and other particulates such as dust mite droppings and dog dander indoor air quality can be improved.

If you’re like most people, changing a filter is a hassle that we’d rather avoid. Now there is technology that addresses that, it’s a ductless air conditioning system, which works only in the rooms where you are. This not only creates a healthier environment but a more economical one.

Doctors say that some allergy symptoms could be symptoms of something more serious. That includes a sinus infection or an upper respiratory infection. So seeing your family doctor first, and then taking steps to make the air better in your home, is the right order to get things done as we move into the spring and summer allergy season.

Doctors and other researchers are doing extensive studies to understand the risks and methods for preventing these allergies according to the CDC report.

By Beth Fredrickson

My journey with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) started in early 2006 after I had surgery.  I had been diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, so I elected to have surgery to remove the first rib on my left side.  The rib was removed by going under the arm to access the rib cage.  Right after the surgery I knew something was wrong.  My left arm was sensitive and painful. 

I went to my family doctor who ruled out everything from lupus to breast cancer, which took months.  I was in horrible pain.  I was also sent to a rheumatologist and a vascular surgeon.  None of them knew what was wrong.  My doctor ended up telling me, “You will just need to live with some pain.”  I couldn’t accept that. 

Read more at National Pain Report.

The words are chilling, eye-opening and often a plea for help from people in pain:

“My next option is suicide. I have no doubts if they don’t find an effective treatment soon I will get to the point where I won’t be able to take it anymore.”

“I have considered ending my life. If I get to a place where my pain cannot be treated and I cannot take care of myself I will euthanize myself.”

“I, too, think about it every single day. The pain I would leave my family with is the only thing that keeps me from doing it.”

“No relief is coming until you are dead.”

These are some of the comments left by readers to our story about the suicide of Dick Trickle, the retired NASCAR driver who took his life last week.  According to his brother, Trickle had severe chronic pain under his left breast from an undisclosed condition.

“He must have just decided the pain was too high, because he would have never done it for any other reason,” Chuck Trickle told ESPN.

Read more at National Pain Report.

“You can’t let the pain win!”

That’s what a young woman in her late 20’s battling pain from a number of auto- immune diseases told a community forum in Pasadena, California.

Arlene Grau, who has rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, fibromyalgia and lupus, was part of a panel sponsored by KPCC Southern California Public Radio for a forum on pain called “Invisible Suffering”.

(You can hear the audio replay of the forum here)

Grau, who is a mother of two young girls, was very candid why she was willing to share her story.

“Pain patients need to hear that we can’t let the illnesses change who we are,” said Grau, who estimates she’s been hospitalized ten times in the last year.

Read more at National Pain Report.

Dick Trickle

By Ed Coghlan

The pain was so bad he killed himself.

It is an occurrence that happens all too often, unrelenting chronic pain that causes someone to commit suicide.

That’s what happened to retired NASCAR driver Dick Trickle this week. His brother Chuck told ESPN by phone from Las Vegas that Dick told him, “I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this.”

Trickle shot himself Thursday at a cemetery near his home in Boger City, North Carolina. He was 71.

“It is a terrible tragedy that anyone would have to resort to taking their own life as a result of pain. Too often, however, this occurs.  It is unfortunate that it takes a publicly know figure to bring this to the forefront of people’s minds,” said Daniel Bennett, MD, DABPM, a Denver pain physician.

Read more at National Pain Report.

Contrary to studies touting its therapeutic value, a new report says that vitamin C does not reduce uric acid levels in patients with gout.

In a small study, researchers in New Zealand found that vitamin C supplements did not lower uric acid (urate) levels to a significant degree.

“While current treatments are successful in reducing the amount of uric acid in the blood, there are many patients who fail to reach appropriate urate levels and need additional therapies,” said lead author, Lisa Stamp, a professor at the University of Otago in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“Though vitamin C may reduce risk of developing gout, our data does not support
using vitamin C as a therapy to lower uric acid levels in patients with established gout.”

Read more at National Pain Report.

When someone hears my story about the medical malpractice that paralyzed my face, invariably they say, “What goes around comes around” or “He’ll get his.”

Some talk about “payback” or “Karma will get him in the end.”

I get it. It’s a way to make me feel better. But it doesn’t.

It doesn’t because if he’ll “someday pay” or if life “takes care of it” then I have to ask the other side of the equation.

Is my Karma my payback? Are pain, and the stopping of my life and dreams, the malpractice?

After all, if he gets his, am I getting mine?

Read more at National Pain Report.

A large new study has documented what many men who use opioid painkillers already know – long term use of the drugs can lead to erectile dysfunction (ED).

Researchers looked at more than 11,000 men with back pain and examined their health records to see if those who used prescription painkillers were more likely to also receive prescriptions for testosterone
replacement or ED medications such as Viagra.

They found that more than 19% of the men who took high-dose opioids for at least four months also received ED prescriptions. Fewer than 7% of the men who did not take opioids received ED prescriptions.

“Men who take opioid pain medications for an extended period of time have the highest risk of ED,” said lead author Richard A. Deyo, MD, an investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for  Health  Research and a professor at Oregon Health & Science University.

Read more at National Pain Report.

I was hurt on September 24, 1996.  I was a teacher, walking my students through the hall when I slipped on construction debris and injured my knee. I got up, but fell right back down.

Unfortunately, because I had injured myself at work, I had to file a claim with New York State Worker’s Compensation.  I had to wait over 4 months for an MRI and almost a year for my first surgery. I have had a total of 4 surgeries on my right knee.

I had only been married a year when I had my accident.  Before I was injured my husband Steve and I went skiing, biking and dancing together. I kept thinking Steve had not signed up for this and he would want to leave.  Not the case at all; he accompanied me to my appointments, asked the doctors many questions, drove or arranged rides for me to physical therapy, and cooked. Steve became my all around caregiver.

As to exactly when the onset of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) began, I am not quite sure.  In the late 90′s, my symptoms were not consistent with my injury. My knee was extremely swollen, hot to the touch, and had an off-coloring to it. The pain I experienced was so intense, I felt as if my knee was constantly on fire.

Read more at National Pain Report.

Dozens of state attorney generals are asking the Food and Drug Administration to issue a “black box” warning about the danger of pregnant women using opioid painkillers. A recent study found that opioids can cause neonatal abstinence syndrome, which occurs when infants suddenly lose their opioid drug supply at birth.

“We write to you today out of concern for the health and well-being of newborn children. The opioid epidemic has taken the lives of many of our citizens and has affected nearly everyone in this nation, including newborn children,” the letter from 43 states attorney general to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg states.

The primary cause of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is maternal opiate use during pregnancy.

Read more at National Pain Report.

Angelina Jolie

By Pat Anson, Editor

The head of a Seattle biotech that recently introduced a new test that screens women for early signs of breast cancer says Angelina Jolie could have postponed or even avoided having a double mastectomy. The actress announced this week that she had both of her breasts surgically removed because she has a gene that puts her at high risk of developing breast cancer.

“I was quite upset,” Steven Quay, MD, said when asked what his reaction was when he first learned about Jolie’s mastectomies. Quay is the founder and CEO of Atossa Genetics (NASDAQ: ATOS), which in January launched a new diagnostic test called ForeCYTE that can spot pre-cancerous cells in breast fluid.

“I cannot speak for her medical care because I do not know all the details. I have to assume she has the best physicians money can buy,” Quay told American News Report. “But I think at least at a minimum, the ForeCYTE test, which shows what is actually going on in the breast on the day that you do the test, I think that test should have been part of the mix that physicians and the patient used in making the decision they made. They may have ended up in the same spot, but it’s an incredibly valuable piece of information.”

Writing in the New York Times, Jolie revealed that she had both breasts removed in February even though she had not been diagnosed with breast cancer. Jolie is at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer because she has the BRAC1 gene.

“My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman,” said Jolie, 37, whose mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56.

“Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex,” Jolie wrote.

The actress said she finished her treatment in late April, after three months of medical procedures that included the mastectomies and breast reconstruction.

“Clearly that’s an unfortunate genetic lottery that she got at birth,” says Quay.

“On the other hand, every kind of cancer doesn’t happen overnight. It happens as part of a process of recognizable pre-cancer changes called hyperplasia. If she were my daughter I would be advising her lets monitor this really closely and let’s see where it goes. And in two years maybe you see the changes in one breast that indicate maybe you need to do something.”

Quay says ForeCYTE works like a modified breast pump, extracting a small amount of fluid from breasts ducts through the nipple. The procedure takes less than ten minutes and can be performed in a doctor’s office. Once removed, the fluid is sent to Atossa’s lab in Seattle, where it can be screened the same day. Much like a Pap smear, the ForeCYTE test looks for abnormal pre-cancerous cells that can appear in breast fluid years before a tumor develops.

This video produced by Atossa explains how it works:

ForeCYTE Breast Health Test – How ForeCYTE Works from Atossa Genetics on Vimeo.

“Information is power and this test is a unique bit of information,” said Quay, who adds that the test is available in about 100 doctors’ offices around the country. The company’s goal is to eventually reach 33,000 OB/GYN’s.

“The fact that we’re so early in our rollout and most people don’t know about it is a shame,” he says.

The ForeCYTE test has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Quay says it costs about $500 and is covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. Atossa plans to introduce a second test later this year called FullCYTE, which is designed to identify which breasts ducts are the source of pre-cancerous cells – which would allow doctors to better target their treatment.

About 225,000 women are diagnosed every year in the U.S. with breast cancer. More than 39,000 die each year from the disease.

About 1 in 500 women have a genetic mutation like Jolie that puts them at high risk of breast cancer.

“For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options,” wrote Jolie. “I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.”

Quay believes Jolie’s surgery may not have been necessary and could have been avoided.

“If I take a random woman whose mother died of ovarian cancer at 56 and has the BRAC1 gene, I would be recommending either quarterly or semi-annually ForeCYTE tests to establish a baseline of what’s going on in the breasts and to monitor it aggressively,” says Quay, who adds that the risk of breast cancer never goes away – even for women who have mastectomies.

“Shockingly, about 1 out of 20 women who have mastectomies end up with breast cancer. That’s kind of the worst of both worlds.”

By Stephen S. Rodrigues, MD

I’ve been a family doctor for 30 years. Fifteen years ago, I started on a quest
to understand how one of my fibromyalgia patients was getting better without pills.

Fibromyalgia is one of the most miserable pain problems in the world.

My patient was a stubborn lady who was frustrated with all the specialists and the side effects of pain medication. She planted the seed that began my quest to comb through all available data to explain why she was better. I wanted to use this miracle to help my other patients.

This journey lead me to realize I was given misinformation in the form of incomplete, biased, and outright false information about pain and what causes it. I need to let others recognize this misinformation so that the concept of pain becomes more logical.

Pain is not what I thought!

Read more at National Pain Report.

Workers compensation is both a blessing and a curse. Sure, I have no out of pocket expenses for the treatment of my Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). However, the amount of time it takes to get anything done is not only aggravating and stressful, it also has the potential to make my condition worse.

For example, it has taken up to ten days to get my prescription filled after the doctor prescribes it. Ten days from dropping it off at the pharmacy until the time I take it home. That means ten days of withdrawal from both anti-depressants and pain medications.

Withdrawal is hard enough on your body, going through it once. It’s even worse when you have no choice but to go through it every month.

Read more at National Pain Report.

By Richard Lenti

A strong support network can ease pain and discomfort for women recovering from breast cancer surgery, a new study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment has found.

After studying more than 3,000 patients over a five year period, researchers at Kaiser Permanente say that patients who reported having “positive social interactions” with friends were better able to deal with the pain and other physical symptoms associated with breast cancer.

“This study provides research-based evidence that social support helps with physical symptoms,” said lead author Candyce H. Kroenke, ScD, staff scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research.

“Social support mechanisms matter in terms of physical outcomes.”

Read more at National Pain Report.

By Richard Lenti

For the millions of people who suffer from chronic back pain, relief may soon come in the form of antibiotics, bringing an end to the suffering and offering a simpler, cheaper option than surgery.

Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Birmingham, England, report in the European Spine Journal that as many as 40% of patients with a specific type of back pain associated with a slipped disc may be helped by the antibiotic amoxicillin clavulanate (Bioclavid).

Scientists discovered that the back pain in question is caused by a bacterial infection associated with acne. Although primarily found on the skin, the bacteria (Propionibacterium acnes) is also found in the mouth where it can be pushed into the circulation by tooth brushing.   

Read more at National Pain Report.

By Celeste Cooper, RN

New guidelines for the treatment of fibromyalgia in Canada were released this week in Winnipeg at the annual meeting of the Canadian Pain Society.  The Canadian Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Fibromyalgia Syndrome fall on the heels of the American Academy of Rheumatology’s preliminary diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia, which was modified after it was criticized by some physicians.

Are the new guidelines the same, similar, or different?

And why does it matter for fibromyalgia patients? Will doctors treat you differently north and south of the border?

Read more at National Pain Report.

By Pat Anson, Editor

The Food and Drug Administration has notified Zogenix Inc. (NASDAQ: ZGNX) that it won’t reach a final decision on the company’s powerful new painkiller, Zohydro, until this summer.

“To our knowledge this sort of delay is unprecedented,” Roger Hawley, CEO of Zogenix, said during a conference call announcing the company’s first quarter results.

The FDA had already informed Zogenix in late February that it would be unable to reach a decision by a March 1 target date. The agency gave no explanation for the added delay.

Read more at National Pain Report.

By Richard Lenti

Contrary to popular belief, multiple sclerosis is more prevalent among African Americans than previously suspected. In fact, a new study published in the journal Neurology found that black patients were nearly 50% more likely to develop the disease than white patients.

Researchers examined the health records of more than 3.5 million Kaiser Permanente health system patients over a three year period. In an average year, 10 out of every 100,000 blacks developed multiple sclerosis (MS); compared to 7 white patients, 3 Hispanics and 1 Asian for every 100,000 people.

“Our findings do not support the widely held belief that blacks have a lower risk of MS than whites, but that MS risk is determined by complex interactions between race, ethnicity, sex, environmental factors and genotypes,” said lead author Annette Langer-Gould, MD, of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation.

Read more at National Pain Report.