Potent New Painkiller in the Works

[KateA2]

Here's an interesting article about new pain-relief medicines being developed from Cone Snail venom:

http://news.discovery.com/human/snai...painkiller.htm

Non-addictive & highly effective, 100x more effective than Morphine (which isn't any good for neuropathic pain anyway...)

As someone who will probably be taking Gabapentin forever (and who dislikes the side-effects) I cheer the development of these new treatments. Yay science!

It looks like an intracathel version is already FDA approved for people with pumps, but that the new oral meds in development are coming along nicely.

[from2344]

Thank you for sharing that site. It seems very interesting and encouraging.

[Kimba22]

It looks like an intracathel version is already FDA approved for people with pumps, but that the new oral meds in development are coming along nicely.

Thanks for sharing! Glad to hear about this.

It's something I'll be asking my pain management dr. about, especially since I already have a pump. Would be nice to have a new normal where pain wasn't part of the equation.

[Myoak]

Hi Kate, Tira, and Kimba,

Thanks for the interesting article, Kate. I wanted to follow-up on something you mentioned by saying “Non-addictive & highly effective, 100x more effective than Morphine (which isn't any good for neuropathic pain anyway...)”

It is true that opioids do not work well in neuropathic pain according to Dr. Pradeep Chopra,. a pain management specialist who teaches medicine at Brown University. I attended a presentation he made in Chicago last month.

Just a few quotes from my notes; all by Dr. Chopra..

“Almost all chronic pain is neuropathic pain…
“Not a problem of nerves, it is a problem of cells…
“Glial cells make up 70-80% of all cells in CNS…
“When glial cells get activated they release cytokines…
“Opioids cause glial cells to activate…
“Drugs must work on glial not nerves…
“Low Dose Naltrexone reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines…

Dr. Chopra said that some, not all, of his patients experience a reduction of pain on LDN; some have experience a sudden and dramatic decrease in pain (overnight) after taking LDN. He spoke of treating CRPS, EDS (connective tissue disorder), and fibromyalgia with LDN. He said most of his fibromyalgia patients start on 1 mg of LDN because they are sensitive to meds.

Good luck to each of you.