As you may know or have read in our President’s Column, Dr. John Satterthwaite has stepped down from his long-standing role as SPS Treasurer and will remain on the board as a non-voting member. We are grateful for his 34 years at the financial helm of the organization and appreciate his wisdom, historical perspective and recommendations that have kept SPS healthy, financially sound and robust.
Gepants are small molecule calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonists. The preventive CGRP monoclonal antibodies(Aimovig, Emgality, Ajovy) are large molecules, delivered once per month as a SQ injection. Seven gepants have been developed since 2004…. CGRP has many effects throughout the body.
Wilmington is a community in southeastern North Carolina known for its beautiful beaches, historic river-walk district, and the largest domestic television and movie production facility outside of California. In April of 2016, this city also became recognized for something else. Castlight Health released “The Opioid Crisis in America’s Workforce.”
Developing this president column is no small task. It is written to pay tribute to our friend and mentor Dr. John Satterthwaite who recently stepped down from serving as the treasurer of the Southern Pain Society during the last 34 years. John nurtured and guided SPS while significantly impacting many SPS members in ways that can never be repaid. As Dr. Mordi Potash said so well: “it is an absolute truism that there would not be a Southern Pain Society in existence in 2020 if not for John Satterthwaite.” This was echoed by Lori Postal who recently wrote John Satterthwaite has served the Southern Pain Society as a “trusted mentor, historian, voice of reason and steward of our finances.”
The relationship between personality and pain can easily be traced to ancient Greece. In the late 19th century psychodynamic theorists saw a connection between emotional factors and the experience of chronic pain. Engel maintained that, while physical pain may result from pathophysiology, the interpretation of pain is a psychological phenomenon and that certain diagnoses were relatively common in people with chronic pain.
The 2019 Southern Pain Society (SPS) conference was held September 13-15 in New Orleans. We enjoyed reconnecting with previous conference attendees and meeting many first-time attendees. It was great to have a new attendee share that “this is great–so much better than I ever expected.” It would be difficult to find someone who didn’t learn at least a few new things.
In a post in a previous issue of this newsletter, titled “Gender disparities in Pain and Pain Care,” we explored the evidence that women are not only at higher risk for pain and pain conditions but that their pain appears to be underestimated and, in some cases, undertreated compared with men’s pain. Similar patterns are evident in diagnosis and treatment of pain in racial/ethnic/SES minority patients.
As a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern Pain Society, I want to share with the membership a recent workshop I presented to the Canadian Federation of Clinical Hypnosis in Banff, Canada. The workshop was titled “Hypnotically Enhanced Addictions Treatment: Drug Abuse, Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, Gambling Addiction, Smoking Cessation, and Obesity, with a Focus on Drug Dependence during this Opioid Crisis.”
“I just want my life back, I want to feel like me again”. This is a common refrain in our work as pain psychologists. Too often individuals with chronic pain feel as though their lives have fundamentally changed from ones defined by activity and engagement in a meaningful life to ones full of limitations, isolation, and feelings of loss.
In a widely-shared article published in the Atlantic in 2015, titled “How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously,” author Joe Fassler tells of his wife Rachel’s visit to the ER after she is suddenly stricken with excruciating abdominal pain, later revealed to be a life-threatening ovarian torsion. . The article tells of their agonizing 14-hour wait in the ER while Rachel’s pain is dismissed, undertreated, and misdiagnosed.