By Jobee Knight

The abuse of prescription pain medications is at an all-time high.  A recent White House study reported a 400 percent increase in the number of people admitted to treatment centers and emergency rooms for abusing prescription pain drugs. The increase was tracked during the 10-year-period from 1998 to 2008 and it spans every gender, race, education and employment level, and all regions of the country. A government representative from the Substance Abuse program said, “The non-medical use of prescription pain relievers is now the second-most prevalent form of illicit drug use in the Nation”

A battle has been raging for some time between potent natural remedies and addictive drugs and medicines.  This is mostly due to the lack of easily understood knowledge about which natural options have been proven effective.  In 400 B.C. the “Father of Medicine” Hippocrates said to his students “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food”.  Mother Nature has provided us with two natural remedies for pain and insomnia that are backed by scientific studies as well as the test of time – calcium and magnesium.  Read the rest of this entry

UAE Philips conducted an online Sleep Apnea Awareness campaign titled Do You Snore, to help build public consciousness about Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) in the UAE. Email invitations were sent out to fill out a short and straight forward survey to more than 200,000 recipients based in the country, targeting a sample group of the age 25 and above.

A high number of respondents showed positive results and are very likely to be suffering fromObstructive Sleep Apnea ( OSA). The potential patients were advised to print their report and seek further medical advice and diagnostic tests for sleep apnea.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders worldwide. It is a condition that causes a persons breathing to stop repeatedly during the night, causing disruption in their sleep as they struggle to breathe. As a result, they never get the deep, restorative sleep that is needed. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can not only negatively impact a persons overall quality of life and productivity, but it can also potentially lead to serious health issues like increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythm, strokes and other conditions. Read the rest of this entry

Active Healthcare, an award-winning industry leader in sleep apnea treatment, hosted a meeting of the Durham A.W.A.K.E. (Alert, Well and Keeping Energetic) support group Thursday, October 28 to share meaningful education and resources for managing this dangerous condition.

Participants learned how to deal with challenges in CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) therapy, an effective method for treating obstructive sleep apnea. Presenters Julie Shannon and Angela Martinez, sleep specialists with Active Healthcare, were on hand to showcase the latest equipment and perform screenings for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in addition to testing attendee CPAP equipment on-site. Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/[Press Release ] / Cephalon, Inc. today announced that Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for its medications NUVIGIL® (armodafinil) Tablets [C-IV] and PROVIGIL® (modafinil) Tablets [C-IV] have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Both the NUVIGIL and PROVIGIL REMS consist of a Medication Guide to inform patients about the potential risks associated with the use of these medications, a communication plan and a timetable for submission of assessments of the REMS.  The communication plan includes a Dear Healthcare Professional Letter, a Prescriber Brochure, a Pharmacist Action Letter and a dedicated REMS Internet Site. The introduction of the NUVIGIL and PROVIGIL REMS programs is consistent with the company’s commitment to safe and appropriate use of its medications.   Read the rest of this entry

[Press Release]-Circadiance, the world leader in soft cloth nasal CPAP masks, has launched the SleepWeaver(R) in the European Union and will launch in Canada soon. The company has secured the right to apply the CE Mark after becoming ISO 13485 certified.

“Sleep Apnea affects tens of millions of people around the world,” said David Groll, Circadiance’s CEO. “We have already established distributors in several European countries in preparation for this launch, and we anticipate the same enthusiastic reception in these new markets that we have enjoyed in the U.S. Our soft cloth mask is the answer to uncomfortable hard plastic masks that foster noncompliance. This milestone is just another step in our effort to establish global distribution for our superior cloth CPAP mask technology.” Read the rest of this entry

Migraine sufferers who experienced abuse and neglect as children have a greater risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease including stroke and myocardial infarction (MI) among others, say scientists presenting data at the American Headache Society’s 52nd Annual Scientific Meeting in Los Angeles this week. 

In a multi-center, cross-sectional study of more than 1,300 headache clinic patients diagnosed with migraine, investigators found a linear relationship between the risk of stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA), MI, or all of these adverse outcomes and the total number of abuse types they experienced as children (physical, emotional or sexual abuse, or physical or emotional neglect.) 

Patients in the study completed a self-administered electronic questionnaire which collected information on age, gender, race, highest educational level attained, body mass index, smoking status, history of childhood maltreatment, as well as self-reported physician-diagnosed CV conditions and risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and obstructive sleep apnea. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was used to assess physical, sexual, emotional abuse and physical, emotional neglect. 

“It is clear from this work that early adverse experiences influence a migraine sufferers’ cardiovascular health in adulthood,” said Gretchen E. Tietjen, MD, of the University of Toledo College Of Medicine, who led the team from 11 neurology centers in the U.S. and Canada. “Other work has shown a link between childhood maltreatment and migraine and now we know that early abuse puts these adults at a greater risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. 

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