Hold the presses; barometric pressure and chronic pain
Q: I heard there was a big influx of counterfeit prescription pills on the market - pills that look like the real thing but are fake. Is that true, and how dangerous is it? - Jason D., Annandale, Maryland
A: It is true. Since there's been a crackdown in Florida and elsewhere on pill mills that cranked out scripts for legally manufactured pain pills, and because responsible doctors are growing more conservative about prescribing them to patients, there's been an increase in made-in-the-U.S.A. counterfeit pills.
The Drug Enforcement Agency says that an influx of pill-making machines is what's pushing these deadly counterfeit drugs onto our streets. Industrial-grade pill presses can turn out 170,000 pills per minute, while handheld ones can press only a dozen at a time.
The worst part of it is that fake pills - masquerading as prescription painkillers, like Oxycodone, hydrocodone, Percocet and Xanax - often are laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is 25 to 50 times more powerful than heroin and is responsible for thousands and thousands of accidental overdoses.
Recently DEA agents in San Francisco followed a delivery of a suspicious industrial pill press to a home, where they found five more presses and 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms) of synthetic fentanyl. One law-enforcement agent said that if someone had just 1 kilogram of fentanyl (wholesale $3,500 to $5,000), a pill press (about $1,000) and the binding material, they could potentially make $10 million worth of fake pills. Hello, "Breaking Bad."
Most pill presses and synthetic fentanyl are made in China. So Chuck Rosenberg, an administrator for the DEA, went to China last January and met with officials about keeping synthetic fentanyl and pill presses from being shipped illegally to the U.S. Let's hope trade relations stay friendly enough that they will agree to step up.
In the meantime, if you're dependent on opioid pain pills, see your doctor about getting treatment for your addiction, and do not buy these drugs on the black market. There's likely no second chance with a fentanyl-laced fake.
Q: My orthopedic surgeon says it's all in my head, but I swear, after my recent spinal fusion with a new disc, four screws and two posts, I get more achy when the weather gets cold and rainy. Isn't there any science to that? - David M., Rome, New York
A: There's ample anecdotal evidence of the relationship of rainy weather to joint pain: People have said for generations that their arthritis acts up when it rains. Some doctors will back you up, too, David. On the other hand, temperature doesn't seem to have much to do with it.
What happens when it rains is that barometric air pressure changes (barometers have been predicting storms for a long time) and the moisture in the air (humidity) becomes more dense. People with sensitive joints from arthritis or injury insist that they can feel the change as pain or discomfort. In contrast, kids and adults with healthy joints don't ever complain about the way the weather makes their joints feel.
So what physical changes could account for the rain/pain/joint problem? One orthopedic surgeon in Brandon, Florida, believes that changes in barometric pressure affect the fluid in your joints, causing swelling, and nerve receptors in those joints react, registering pain.
Others agree. Dr. Robert Bolash, a pain-management specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, said, "Weather changes actually can affect chronic pain - specifically joint pain." While admitting that there's not a whole lot of scientific evidence out there, he points out that air pressure and humidity don't affect nerve or stomach pain, but if you have chronic joint pain, you are much more likely to be susceptible to changes in the atmosphere.
So, David, know that once you're fully healed up from your surgery - stay on your physical therapy! - you won't be a walking barometer. It could take a full year, but it will get better, and you'll even forget to take your umbrella with you on a cloudy day.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Read more http://cdn.kingfeatures.com/rss/feed/editorial/index.php?content=YouDocQ_20180325