Topics: Addiction | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychopharmacology | Registered Articles

It can be challenging to manage chronic pain, even more so when our patients suffer from addiction. We can find ourselves walking a tightrope between the risk of relapse due to the inadequate treatment of pain, and the risk of relapse due to the use of opioid analgesics.

Topics: Addiction | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychopharmacology

Dosages matter. The risk of death from an overdose with patients prescribed at least 100 mg daily morphine equivalent is about 7 times higher than a patient prescribed less than 20 mg of morphine a day.

Topics: Addiction | Neuroscience in Psychiatry | Practice Tools and Tips

All pain is real. It’s just a question of whether that pain is being triggered by a physical injury or by something else. Studies show that emotional injury activates the same areas of the brain as does physical injury.

Topics: Addiction | Research Update | Substance Abuse | Women's Issues in Psychiatry

New evidence suggests that the prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is higher than previously documented. In this study, prevalence estimates were derived from 13,146 first-grade children in four U.S. communities between 2010 and 2016.

Topics: Addiction | Psychopharmacology Tips | Research Update | Substance Abuse

Acting on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, varenicline (Chantix) is an FDA-approved treatment for smoking cessation. These receptors are implicated in both nicotine and alcohol reward pathways, so could varenicline also be helpful for treating alcohol use disorder (AUD)?

Topics: Addiction | Psychopharmacology Tips | Research Update

Recent guidelines published by the American Society of Addiction Medicine and nationally in Australia provide support for transferring patients from methadone to buprenorphine-naloxone (BNX). Patients may switch, thinking BNX is easier to discontinue or because of methadone side effects.

Topics: CME Post-Test

The post-test for this issue is available for one year after the publication date to subscribers only. By successfully completing the test you will be awarded a certificate for 2 CME credits.