Latest news with #chronic pain
SBS Australia
6 days ago
- Health
- SBS Australia
Report Reveals Ongoing Stigma for Chronic Pain Sufferers
LISTEN TO SBS Indonesian 24/07/2025 04:16 English A new report that surveyed 5,000 Australians found that Australians living with chronic pain continue to suffer stigma. The study by Chronic Pain Australia found 74 per cent felt ignored or ignored; and 48 per cent experienced prejudice from healthcare professionals. It found almost three-quarters of chronic pain sufferers experience mental health problems as a result of the pain they experience. Nearly two-thirds were unable to work and were in financial difficulties. Listen to SBS Indonesian every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 3pm. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram , and don't miss our podcasts .
SBS Australia
22-07-2025
- Health
- SBS Australia
Report finds people with chronic pain continue to suffer from stigma
The research found nearly three-quarters of chronic pain sufferers experience mental health issues as a result of their pain. The report found this year - 2025 - 54 per cent of survey respondents reported waiting more than two years for a diagnosis, and 44 per cent waited over three years. Chronic Pain Australia's report calls on the federal government to make chronic pain a national priority through changes like providing more localised funding to primary care and the coding system. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST SBS Filipino 22/07/2025 04:58 Filipino 📢 Where to Catch SBS Filipino
Forbes
21-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Cannabis Is An ‘Effective Treatment' For Chronic Pain, Study Suggests
New research shows that medical cannabis is an effective treatment for chronic and improves the ... More quality of life for patients who use it. The use of medical cannabis is an 'effective treatment option' for chronic pain patients, according to the findings of a recent study. The research also found that chronic pain patients who used cannabis for at least on year 'exhibited significantly lower healthcare utilization' than non-users and had better quality of life. The study, which was published last week in the journal Pharmacy, was written by researchers with the Florida-based medical cannabis telehealth company Leafwell and George Mason University in Virginia. The findings also showed that chronic pain patients who used cannabis reported fewer visits to urgent care centers and hospital emergency departments (EDs). Additionally, the data showed that hospitalization rates were lower among chronic pain patients who used medical marijuana, although the difference was not sufficient to be considered statistically significant. 'Exposure [to cannabis] was associated with a 2.0 percentage point reduction in urgent care visits, a 3.2 percentage point reduction in ED visits and fewer unhealthy days per month,' according to a report from online cannabis news source Marijuana Moment. 'The findings of this study suggest, in line with existing research, that medical cannabis is likely an effective treatment option for patients with chronic pain,' authors wrote. 'This underscores the potential for not only [quality of life] The self-reported data used for the study was collected from chronic pain patients by Leafwell. The telehealth platform operates in 36 states, connecting physicians with patients seeking certification to use medical cannabis. 'The cannabis-exposed group included individuals who had used medical cannabis within the prior year and were seeking recertification of their medical card through Leafwell,' the authors wrote, 'while the unexposed group comprised first-time Leafwell patients who self-reported no cannabis use in the past year.' Study Of More Than 5,000 Chronic Pain Patients The study included data from 5,242 chronic pain patients. Of them, 3,943 reported using cannabis over the past year, while the remaining 1,299 participants reported no past-year cannabis use. Mitchell Doucette, senior research director at Leafwell and the lead author of the study, said the findings show that medical cannabis can improve the lives of chronic pain patients. 'We looked at a large set of real-world data, where we compared medical cannabis users who we knew used for at least one year and people who had never used cannabis,' Doucette told Marijuana Moment. 'When we compared those groups, we found that medical cannabis users who had used for at least one year had lower rates of emergency room visits, lower rates of urgent care visits and, importantly, increased quality of life.' 'When we combine those outcomes,' added Doucette, who has a doctorate in health and public policy from Johns Hopkins, 'it suggests that medical cannabis is not only leading to better quality of life for chronic pain patients but, again, potentially better health outcomes.' Doucette noted that some previous studies have explored quality-of-life improvements among medical cannabis patients, and other research has studied healthcare outcomes, 'but really this is the first study to kind of connect these two dots.' Overall, Doucette said, it is becoming increasingly apparent that medical marijuana 'is a helpful medicinal product for certain groups of people' and that healthcare systems 'should try to alleviate access and cost margins for those individuals who it may be too costly of a product for them to access.' Cannabis And Chronic Pain The Leafwell study is consistent with other research into the use of medical cannabis as a treatment for chronic pain. Also last week, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reported on the results of German study showing that cannabis extracts significantly reduced pain and improved mental health for chronic pain patients who used it. 'Our findings indicate that treatment with medicinal cannabis improves both physical and mental health in patients with chronic pain,' the study's authors concluded. 'The results suggest that medicinal cannabis might be a safe alternative for patients who are inadequately treated with conventional therapies.'
Forbes
21-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Cannabis Is An ‘Effective Treatment' For Chronic Pain, Study Finds
New research shows that medical cannabis is an effective treatment for chronic and improves the ... More quality of life for patients who use it. The use of medical cannabis is an 'effective treatment option' for chronic pain patients, according to the findings of a recent study. The research also found that chronic pain patients who used cannabis for at least on year 'exhibited significantly lower healthcare utilization' than non-users and had better quality of life. The study, which was published last week in the journal Pharmacy, was written by researchers with the Florida-based medical cannabis telehealth company Leafwell and George Mason University in Virginia. The findings also showed that chronic pain patients who used cannabis reported fewer visits to urgent care centers and hospital emergency departments (EDs). Additionally, the data showed that hospitalization rates were lower among chronic pain patients who used medical marijuana, although the difference was not sufficient to be considered statistically significant. 'Exposure [to cannabis] was associated with a 2.0 percentage point reduction in urgent care visits, a 3.2 percentage point reduction in ED visits and fewer unhealthy days per month,' according to a report from online cannabis news source Marijuana Moment. 'The findings of this study suggest, in line with existing research, that medical cannabis is likely an effective treatment option for patients with chronic pain,' authors wrote. 'This underscores the potential for not only [quality of life] The self-reported data used for the study was collected from chronic pain patients by Leafwell. The telehealth platform operates in 36 states, connecting physicians with patients seeking certification to use medical cannabis. 'The cannabis-exposed group included individuals who had used medical cannabis within the prior year and were seeking recertification of their medical card through Leafwell,' the authors wrote, 'while the unexposed group comprised first-time Leafwell patients who self-reported no cannabis use in the past year.' Study Of More Than 5,000 Chronic Pain Patients The study included data from 5,242 chronic pain patients. Of them, 3,943 reported using cannabis over the past year, while the remaining 1,299 participants reported no past-year cannabis use. Mitchell Doucette, senior research director at Leafwell and the lead author of the study, said the findings show that medical cannabis can improve the lives of chronic pain patients. 'We looked at a large set of real-world data, where we compared medical cannabis users who we knew used for at least one year and people who had never used cannabis,' Doucette told Marijuana Moment. 'When we compared those groups, we found that medical cannabis users who had used for at least one year had lower rates of emergency room visits, lower rates of urgent care visits and, importantly, increased quality of life.' 'When we combine those outcomes,' added Doucette, who has a doctorate in health and public policy from Johns Hopkins, 'it suggests that medical cannabis is not only leading to better quality of life for chronic pain patients but, again, potentially better health outcomes.' Doucette noted that some previous studies have explored quality-of-life improvements among medical cannabis patients, and other research has studied healthcare outcomes, 'but really this is the first study to kind of connect these two dots.' Overall, Doucette said, it is becoming increasingly apparent that medical marijuana 'is a helpful medicinal product for certain groups of people' and that healthcare systems 'should try to alleviate access and cost margins for those individuals who it may be too costly of a product for them to access.' Cannabis And Chronic Pain The Leafwell study is consistent with other research into the use of medical cannabis as a treatment for chronic pain. Also last week, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reported on the results of German study showing that cannabis extracts significantly reduced pain and improved mental health for chronic pain patients who used it. 'Our findings indicate that treatment with medicinal cannabis improves both physical and mental health in patients with chronic pain,' the study's authors concluded. 'The results suggest that medicinal cannabis might be a safe alternative for patients who are inadequately treated with conventional therapies.'
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Cure by Katherine Brabon review – moments of grace in meditation on chronic illness
Katherine Brabon's fourth novel follows a mother and daughter with a shared experience of chronic illness who travel to Italy in search of a cure. It feels like a companion piece to her elegant previous novel Body Friend, about three women who seek out different ways of managing their chronic pain after surgery. Cure continues Brabon's metaphoric use of doubles, mirrors and reflections to explore the social dimensions of the body in pain. It opens in Lake Como, where, we are told, in autumn 'clouds devour the hills around the lake' and the water 'reflects the scene of disappearance. [It] cannot help but replicate the obscuring fog.' Vera has been here before; she is now taking her 16-year-old daughter, Thea, to a small town in Lombardy, where she herself travelled with her parents as a sick teen, to seek out an obscure man who promises to heal and cure people of their illnesses. Cure captures the painful intimacies between a mother and daughter: 'Vera has lived this, or a version of this, but she wants it to be different for her daughter,' Brabon writes. Vera and Thea are allied in their shared experience of chronic headaches, fatigue and joints stiffened with pain. Both have been subjected to the banal health advice of others – to take cold showers, hot baths, avoid coffee and consume tea. At the same time the pair are estranged – Thea wants to rebel against Vera's anxious and protective proscriptions; Vera favours curatives such as 'supplement powders, tablets, and tea' over the prescribed medications recommended by her doctor husband. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The gentle and unassuming narrative shifts between Vera's adolescent pilgrimage to Italy and her daughter's, and between sequences from Vera's early adulthood and scenes of the mother and child at home in Melbourne. Vera is taken to a thermal bath in regional Victoria by her parents, and spends hours connecting with other young women online. In Italy, Thea rests and walks to the lake, meeting a teenage boy called Santo. Writing in her journal, she reflects upon how her mother's journey maps neatly on to her own: the same age, the same bed, a shared illness, a shared purpose. To Vera, her daughter is a 'just a body': 'a mirror of her own body … she cannot see beyond the body, its destruction, its inheritance'. Thea and Vera's nights are long, edged with pain; the days are repetitious, spent managing that burden. Brabon is sensitive to how time can dissolve in these efforts of maintenance, bracketing the hours with temporary relief. Vera partakes in a fortnightly regime of subcutaneous injections, while Thea relies on painkillers to alleviate the 'fatigue and fever and aching eyelids'. As she swallows the tablets, she 'feels her mother come back to her'. In this cyclical experience of illness, Thea looks to Vera as a template of what will come. In Thea, Brabon draws a sensitive portrait of a girl adjusting to life in a body that will be constrained. Vera is a complex figure, anxious and tired, whose responsibility for her daughter both draws them together and drives them apart. They turn to writing as a means of communication and escape: Thea retreats into her journal, diarising her own adolescence and crafting stories about her mother; Vera appeals to online communities, where she can share her own experience anonymously. This secret retreat into fantasy is driven by necessity, for it is there that mother and daughter are free to imagine their lives with a supple and mysterious hope. Vera and Thea must live slowly, carefully, and the narrative reproduces this in its structure – to enervating effect. Between sequences of Vera and Thea in the past and present are italicised passages told from an estranged, omniscient perspective. The pair become 'mother and daughter', 'the woman' and 'the girl'. Thea's upset sleep and swollen knees, initially presented to the reader with first-hand intimacy, are reconsidered with toneless neutrality, a flat recital of events: 'The girl feels both happy and angry'; 'the girl walks to the lake'. In adopting this kind of glacial formalism, Brabon perhaps seeks to capture the effects of bodily estrangement with the sage reticence of a writer like Rachel Cusk, whose novel Parade is quoted in the epigraph. Instead, these italicised passages achieve something more dry, too narrow. The warmer haze of Brabon's other prose better captures the feelings of rupture and dissociation brought about by the sick body and by the family in conflict. Brabon's play with narration in Cure signals her subtle exploration of how stories of sickness can be confining, too definitive. Shifting our attention to the ill body beyond pathology, she re-engages with the relational and affective qualities of this experience, sketching a dim world, foggy with illusion and mythmaking. Narrative intensity is stripped back for something softer, more reflective. If the novel's carefully refined atmosphere is sometimes remote to a fault, it also contains arresting moments of grace, as Brabon meditates on the stories we tell about our bodies, wellness, healing and memory. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Cure by Katherine Brabon is out through Ultimo Press ($34.99)
