February 8, 2024 News by Marisa Wexler, MS Non-opioid compound has potential to ease chronic nerve pain Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) have developed a novel non-opioid compound, called FEM-1689, that is able to reduce pain related to nerve damage in animal models. Neuropathic pain, or pain caused by damage to nerves, is a common symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS)…
December 4, 2023 News by Patricia Inacio, PhD Aerobic cycling eases fatigue and pain of MS, if intensity kept up Adhering to an aerobic exercise program of moderate to intense cycling for 12 weeks significantly eased pain and fatigue in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), allowing them to be more active in daily life, a small pilot clinical trial found. Results were similar for patients in the trial’s forced…
November 14, 2023 News by Margarida Maia, PhD Study ties central neuropathic pain to more severe emotional burden Central neuropathic pain ā the kind resulting from damage to the brain and spinal cord ā appears to be more severe and widespread and to cause more emotional burden in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) than pain in muscles and joints, according to a recent study. Regardless of pain…
November 3, 2023 News by Marisa Wexler, MS Study: Some types of MS pain make exercise more difficult Chronic pain can make it harder for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) to be physically active, but some types of pain have a bigger effect than others, a study suggests. The findings show not just whether a patient is having chronic pain needs to be considered, but also what…
November 9, 2022 News by Mary Chapman Saint Louis University Opens Neuroscience Research Institute With an overarching goal of improving patients’ health and life quality, Saint Louis University (SLU) has opened an institute for neuroscience researchers working in a variety of fields to study disorders of the central nervous system, includingĀ multiple sclerosis (MS). The Institute for Translational Neuroscience (ITN), an outgrowth of the…
August 9, 2022 News by Marisa Wexler, MS MS Patients Miss Work Nearly 2 Times as Often, US Study Finds People with multiple sclerosis (MS) are absent from their places of employment nearly twice as often as individuals without the neurodegenerative disease, according to a new study based on U.S. data. The results also showed missing work is significantly more common for MS patients who are unmarried, experience…
July 19, 2022 Columns by Teresa Wright-Johnson ‘To Everything There Is a Season’: Coping With Grief, Loss, and MS Hello, all. It’s been almost a year since Iāve written a column, and I missed connecting with you. I’ve been processing the grief of losing my mother in September 2020, withstanding the challenges of living with multiple sclerosis and chronic pain, and valiantly attempting to find the message…
March 25, 2022 Columns by John Connor The Heel That Won’t Heal The dull throbbing always hits a crescendo “in the wee small hours,” as Mr. Sinatra ā or rather his songwriters ā so aptly put it. Iām referring to a wound thatās been with me for over a year now. True, it disappeared for a teeny while, when my heel…
February 11, 2022 Columns by Ed Tobias What Is Trigeminal Neuralgia in MS All About, Anyway? My immediate thought after reading a recent MS News Today headline stating that trigeminal neuralgia (TN) affects more than 3% of MS patients was, “Really, only 3%?” The reason is I’ve seen several complaints about the condition, which causes excruciating pain in the face. As the story noted, TN…
September 23, 2021 Columns by Jennifer (Jenn) Powell Emotional and Physical Pain Are My Unwanted Sidekicks Pain is the consummate four-letter word. I have felt pain in the most primal of ways. The emotional chasm of grief in my soul. The physical torture of pain in my body. Pain is unyielding in its relentless torment. It remains the quagmire I fail to solve. Life with…
July 30, 2021 Columns by John Connor The Painful Tooth: My Weekend of Agony Iāve written about trigeminal neuralgia (TN), which entails severe facial pain, many times. Let me count the ways. Please excuse me while I go off and search through my columns. I’ll be a while. Well, it turns out I’ve written specifically about it only three times,…
July 16, 2021 Columns by Ed Tobias Using Cannabis to Treat Your MS? A Word of Caution People with MS who are using cannabis take heed: A research letter published in May in JAMA Network Open reports that calls to poison control centers about people intentionally or inadvertently using plant-based or processed cannabis products have been increasing over the past several years. Public health officials are…
July 31, 2020 Columns by John Connor The Mouth That Roared and Roared Strap in: This is not going to be a fun one. Even less so for me ā though I’m writing this under the sort of drug load that Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson would have been proud of! Not for fun (or dependence!) but for survival. “Since TNĀ is…
June 24, 2019 News by Marisa Wexler, MS Blocking Sortilin Protein May Be Potential Treatment for Chronic Nerve Pain, Mouse Study Suggests Inhibiting the function of a protein called sortilin ā an important regulator of nerve damage-induced pain in mice ā may represent a potentially effective strategy for treating chronic pain in humans, including those with multiple sclerosis, a study in mice suggests. The researchers say more work is needed…
May 9, 2019 Columns by Jennifer (Jenn) Powell Perception Over Pain: Making a Mental Shift with SPMS I am a positive person with not-so-positive moments. These moments don’t quantify my essence. Nevertheless, they sure try. I work hard to keep the negativity at bay, but I don’t always succeed. As I write, I’m overcome with pain and fatigue. This is not the exception but the…
January 31, 2019 News by Alice MelĆ£o, MSc MS Patients Sought to Test Alternative Chronic Pain Treatment Methods A clinical trial funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society is recruiting adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to test two non-pharmacological strategies to manage MS-related chronic pain. The trial (NCT03782246) will be conducted at the University of Washington, and plans to enroll about 250 participants across…
December 20, 2018 News by Alice MelĆ£o, MSc Cannabis-based Sublingual Tablet to Enter Trials in Israel as Possible Spasticity Treatment, OWCP Says OWC Pharmaceutical Research is planning new clinical studies to evaluate the activity and safety of its cannabinoid-enriched sublingual soluble tablet.Ā The company announced that an Institutional Review Board (IRB) in Israel approved its request to conduct a safety and tolerability trial there. The company also is asking to amend the…
April 19, 2018 Columns by Jennifer (Jenn) Powell Pain Meds Help Me Live There is no guidebook to living with a chronic, progressive, and incurable disease. Even if such a book existed, it would only be somewhat applicable, as things change on a daily basis. We are all as unique as this disease, yet have one commonality: pain. Before my multipleĀ sclerosis…
February 20, 2018 News by Patricia Silva, PhD Medical Cannabis Found to Safely Reduce Chronic Pain in Older Patients in Study Medical cannabis was found to safely and significantly reduce chronic pain in older patients withĀ multiple sclerosis (MS)Ā and a wide range of other conditions, researchers in Israel report. Led by scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the Cannabis Clinical Research Institute at Soroka University Medical…
December 14, 2017 News by Iqra Mumal, MSc Chronic and Neuropathic Pain in MS Patients Should Be Routinely Evaluated, Study Says Multiple sclerosis patients should be routinely assessed for chronic and, especially, neuropathic pain in order to properly diagnose and treat this condition, which appears to directly affect the degree of a patient's disability, a new study reports. Pain is one of the most disabling clinical symptoms of MS, associated with suffering, distress, and lower quality of life. Many studies have investigated the prevalence of chronic pain in MS patients but with highly varying results: estimates range from 29 percent up to 92 percent. This disparity is likely due to methodological differences between the studies, as well as differences in the studied population. The result is the prevalence of pain in MS is still unclear, and underdiagnoses of pain in this patient population likely. Researchers in Italy conducted a single-center study to determine the prevalence and characteristics of chronic pain, defined as constant pain for more than three months, in a population of MS patients. Pain was evaluated using validated tools, and the results were analyzed in relation to clinical features such as disease duration and disability. In total,Ā 374 MS patients with different disease severities were assessed for pain. Results found an overall prevalence of chronic pain of 52.1,Ā most frequently affecting the lower limbs. Neuropathic pain, which refers to pain resulting from a lesion or disease impacting the sensory nervous system, was the most frequent type of chronic pain, affecting 23.7 percent of the patients analyzed. Pain intensity was also found to be significantly higher in patients with neuropathic pain compared to those with non-neuropathic pain. Researchers measured patients' disability using the Expanded Disability Status Scale. They determined that patients with chronic pain, and especially those with chronic neuropathic pain, had significantly higher EDSS scores (meaning greater disability) than those without such pain. Both these patient groups were also more likely to be on long-term pain medications: 33 percent of MSĀ patients with neuropathic pain, and 24 percent of those with chronic pain. These results indicate that pain is underdiagnosed and undertreated in MS patients, and a factor that may contribute to increased disability. āOur results suggest that clinical disability is higher in MS patients with chronic pain and, in particular, in those with neuropathic pain,ā the researchers concluded. āThe present study supports the routine assessment of neuropathic pain in MS patients.ā
November 9, 2017 Columns by Jennifer (Jenn) Powell A Beacon of Hope Amid MS-Related Pain Do you have pain? Although prone to subjectivity, I am certain the majority of you silently said yes. I did. I hesitated to write this, as pain, from the definition of it to the management of it, is idiosyncratic. Rather than draw hard and fast lines, I prefer to…