Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0027497 (nausea)
 23,468 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A double-blind multidose trial of the addition of ketamine (0-40 mg, i.m., 8 times per day) to intramuscular morphine therapy was undertaken in a 61-year-old man with chronic back pain related to osteoporosis who had received inadequate pain relief from anterior interbody fusion, dorsal column stimulation and morphine alone. The patient reported only mild side effects. Nausea, tiredness and well-being were not significantly influenced by the ketamine dose level. Visual analogue pain scores prior to each dose were not associated with the ketamine dose level, but pain scores 30 min after doses were significantly reduced in a dose-related manner. In addition, the amount of morphine used by the patient was significantly reduced as the ketamine dose increased. This patient experienced substantial benefit from the addition of ketamine to intramuscular morphine therapy.
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PMID:Ketamine as an adjunct to morphine in the treatment of pain. 882 1

This article describes an immunocompetent patient with a spinal abscess that developed from Nocardia asteroides. Nocardia is a rare etiology for spinal abscesses, especially in immunocompetent patients. Nocardia usually affects the lungs and brain of immunocompromised individuals. Few reports of Nocardia involving bones or the spine have been published.The patient had a history of chronic back pain and had several procedures to alleviate the pain. In August 1997, the patient had an epidural block and a subsequent infection that was treated with antibiotics. In October 1997, she developed increasing back pain greater than her baseline chronic low back pain. Additional presenting symptoms were fever, chills, and nausea. On admission, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed an epidural abscess. The patient underwent irrigation and debridement. Postoperatively, the patient was initially placed on broad-spectrum antibiotics. After 38 days, the culture was identified as N asteroides, and the patient was placed on appropriate antibiotics. The patient has been followed with MRI prior to the discovery of the abscess and annually since the abscess due to her baseline chronic low back pain. No residual abscess was discovered.
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PMID:Nocardia spinal epidural abscess: 14-year follow-up. 2222 6

Back pain affects most adults, causes disability for some, and is a common reason for seeking healthcare. In the United States, opioid prescription for low back pain has increased, and opioids are now the most commonly prescribed drug class. More than half of regular opioid users report back pain. Rates of opioid prescribing in the US and Canada are two to three times higher than in most European countries. The analgesic efficacy of opioids for acute back pain is inferred from evidence in other acute pain conditions. Opioids do not seem to expedite return to work in injured workers or improve functional outcomes of acute back pain in primary care. For chronic back pain, systematic reviews find scant evidence of efficacy. Randomized controlled trials have high dropout rates, brief duration (four months or less), and highly selected patients. Opioids seem to have short term analgesic efficacy for chronic back pain, but benefits for function are less clear. The magnitude of pain relief across chronic non-cancer pain conditions is about 30%. Given the brevity of randomized controlled trials, the long term effectiveness and safety of opioids are unknown. Loss of long term efficacy could result from drug tolerance and emergence of hyperalgesia. Complications of opioid use include addiction and overdose related mortality, which have risen in parallel with prescription rates. Common short term side effects are constipation, nausea, sedation, and increased risk of falls and fractures. Longer term side effects may include depression and sexual dysfunction. Screening for high risk patients, treatment agreements, and urine testing have not reduced overall rates of opioid prescribing, misuse, or overdose. Newer strategies for reducing risks include more selective prescription of opioids and lower doses; use of prescription monitoring programs; avoidance of co-prescription with sedative hypnotics; and reformulations that make drugs more difficult to snort, smoke, or inject.
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PMID:Opioids for low back pain. 2556 13