General Facts
1. Efforts to reduce adolescent smoking may decrease low back pain related morbidity.
"Predictors of low back pain hospitalization _ A prospective follow up of 57,408 adolescents" Pain 139(2008)
2. After a whiplash injury recovery occurs for a substantial number of patients in the initial three months after the accident.
"Course and prognostic factors of whiplash" Pain 138(2008).
3. Despite over 4,000 published articles that provide extensive scientific data on the severity and underlying causes of fibromyalgia, the over 10 million people in the USA suffering with the disease are still influenced and demeaned by the naysayers who question the validity of their pain.
"Living with the stigma of fibromyalgia and depression" The Pain Practitioner, 18 ( 2008)
4. It is estimated that 17 to 30 million Americans suffer significant chronic pain.
http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm
5. In 2006 there were 3,800 overdose deaths from methadone and all were from illicit drug use. None of these overdoses were from the prescribed use of the drug.
www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs25/25930
6. According to AMA, there is growing recognition on the part of healthcare providers, government regulators and the public that the under treatment of pain is a major societal problem. Pain of all types is undertreated in our society.
7. Smokers are more likely to use analgesic medications than people who have never smoke.
Drug Alcohol Depend 2006: 85:49-55.
