A preliminary study suggests that botulinum injection may be associated with reduced frequency of migraine headaches pain that is experienced as a buildup of pressure inside the head, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Dermatology journals.

Three months after treatment, 13 patients had responded to the treatment with a reduction in migraine pain, including 10 who had imploding or ocular headaches and three who had exploding headaches.

Low intensity lasers may help treat neck pain, according to a new Australian study. Results for the non-invasive treatment were comparable to those for other treatments, including painkillers and anti-inflammatories.

In the study, 820 patients with neck pain were given the therapy, which involves firing low-power laser beams at the back or side of the neck, where the pain is located. The lasers penetrate the skin to a depth of several centimetres, but are not painful and do not generate damaging heat.

A new study from Johns Hopkins has shown that obesity nearly doubles the risk of developing kidney pain. The research also showed that the degree of obesity doesn’t appear to increase or decrease the risk one way or the other.

“The common thinking was that as weight rises, kidney stone risk rises as well, but our study refutes that,” says study leader Brian R. Matlaga, assistant professor of urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of stone diseases and ambulatory care at Hopkins’ James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute.

Women with gout are at greater risk of a heart attack  than men with the disease, indicates research published ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Gout is known to boost the risk of a heart attack in men. But to date, little has been known about the impact of gout on women’s cardiovascular health.

Botulinum toxin type A (Botox), the drug that can temporarily erase wrinkles, may also help prevent some types of migraines, a small study suggests.

Specifically, Botox may help reduce the recurrence of those migraines people describe as crushing or eye-popping otherwise known as ocular migraines. However, the treatment does not appear to work for migraines that are experienced as pressure inside the head, the researchers added.

Chocolate not only tastes good, but it also apparently activates the part of the brain that blunts pain and makes it difficult to stop eating, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience.

But a much leaner choice has the same effect, drinking water, say University of Chicago neurology professor Peggy Mason and neurobiology research associate Hayley Foo.

Mason and Foo gave rats either a chocolate chip to eat or water to drink as they lit a light bulb underneath their cages, when they ate chocolate or drank water, their pain response to the heat was dulled and they did not lift their paws as quickly.

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Women feeling some sort of physical pain may not need medicine after all,  she may just need to hold her lover’s hand or simply look at a picture of him.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that women who had given mild burns felt less pain when looking at their lover’s photograph, compared to looking at the picture of a stranger.

The women also seemed to feel better if they were holding their lover’s hand.
The study, which is published in the journal Psychological Science, “underscores the importance of social relationships and staying socially connected,” according to reseasrchers.

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It is now widely believed that pain affects men and women differently, for example, young children may learn to respond to pain based on how they are treated when they experience pain. Some children may be cuddled and comforted, while others may be encouraged to tough it out and to dismiss their pain.

Many experts now agree that women recover more quickly from pain, seek help more quickly for their pain, and are less likely to allow pain to control their lives. They also are more likely to marshal a variety of resources-coping skills, support and distraction-with which to deal with their pain.

Providing forearm support is an effective intervention to prevent muscule disorders of the upper body pain associated with computer work, according to a study in The British Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Reported in the April issue, the study shows that use of large arm boards significantly reduces neck and shoulder pain as well as hand, wrist and forearm pain. said lead author David Rempel, MD, MPH, director of the ergonomics program at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Back pain during pregnancy isn’t something that would alarm most women. It is estimated that about 50 to 80 % of women suffer back pain during the course of their pregnancy.

Upper back pain occurs frequently in the third trimester of pregnancy.  We commented that upper back pain commonly occurs during all stages of pregnancy, due to weight gain and breast enlargement.

A new prospective study of pain in adults with sickle cell disease finds that daily pain is far more prevalent and severe than previous large studies have indicated.

Previous estimates about sickle cell pain assumed that if patients didn’t go to the hospital or seek medical care for pain, they didn’t have pain. Previous sickle cell treatments also were based on the number of visits to hospitals to relieve pain.

Headache is pain in your head. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) identifies four main types of headache, each of which can come in a wide range of severity, from mild to debilitating.

They identifies that migraine begins as a dull ache and then develops into a constant throbbing and pulsating paint that you may feel at the temples, as well as the front or back of one or both sides of the head.”

A study by researchers at Charite University of Medicine in Berlin Germany has found that acupuncture can ease the pain and disability associated with arthritis.

Traditional arthritis treatments consisting of anti-inflammatory drugs were continued alongside the acupuncture in all cases. acupuncture is used as a pain treatment, although the actual mechanism by which it works has not yet been scientifically explained.

Fish oil contains two naturally occurring fatty acids, EPA and DHA. These fatty acids stimulate the body’s anti-inflammatory processes and help relieve joint pain.

Resent research has shown that a diet high in EPA fish oil reduced lower back pain in over 50% of sufferers. 125 participants with back pain were given 850 mg of EPA and 200 mg of DHA a day, and over half were able to discontinue prescription pain medication.

Hugging a hot-water bottle can have a similar effect to a painkiller by effectively “deactivating” pain at a molecular level, scientists say.

Researchers from University College London used DNA technology to monitor heat and pain receptors within cells.

They say temperatures over 40C (104F) switch on internal heat receptors which block the effect of chemical messengers that cause the body to detect pain.