Blog Archive

You’re congested, or you had a late night out with friends, or maybe you’ve strained your eyes looking at a computer screen. Those are all perfectly normal and temporary causes of head pain and usually no cause for concern.  But if you experience frequent or debilitating headaches that greatly affect...

If you’re struggling with joint pain that’s preventing you from enjoying the activities you once loved, you’re not alone. The CDC reports that one in four adults in the United States has doctor-diagnosed arthritis. Perhaps more telling is the fact that the Arthritis Foundation found that more than 92 million...

Estimates place the number of people in the United States who have fibromyalgia at 4 million, and the reason why we can only work with estimates is that the disorder can be difficult to diagnose. There’s no single test that can confirm fibromyalgia, which leaves us to thoroughly review your...

You’ve had a long day, and someone gives your shoulders and neck a little massage — you instantly feel better! Can this same effect occur when you’re struggling with chronic pain? We believe so. As pain management specialists, the team here at Summit Pain Alliance recognizes that there are many...

Waking up to daily pain can take a toll — physically, mentally, and emotionally. And when pain lingers for months or years, it’s easy to feel defeated. As you search for much-needed solutions, you might be hesitant to turn to solutions like surgery or medications, which carry a degree of...

At its core, arthritis is a condition that causes pain and inflammation in your joints. The road to these symptoms, however, isn’t a single one as there are more than 100 different types of the disease. These types are typically grouped into four categories. To help you better understand the...

Given its relatively small size, pain in your neck can have a surprisingly large impact on your overall wellness, as well as your ability to function. From driving your car to sleeping well, this type of discomfort can limit your life in some very significant ways. That is why seeking...

Maybe you tweaked your back while lifting something heavy, or you developed a herniated disc in your spine, causing great discomfort. The fact is, the causes of back pain are widespread. At Summit Pain Alliance, our team of back pain experts has treated all types of back pain at our...

Technically, fibromyalgia is classified as an inflammatory disorder, but mounting evidence points toward it being a disorder of your central nervous system. If you have fibromyalgia, you understand the pain, the brain fog, the mood swings, and more that are part of this chronic and debilitating illness. Our team here...

Your sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in your body and can cause a lot of pain when it gets compressed. Not only can you feel pain in your lower back, but the symptoms often travel down one of your legs, making the problem not so local. At Summit Pain...

Joint pain in the form of arthritis affects more than 92 million adults in the United States, with symptoms that range from mild to those that pose serious limitations. While arthritis is, far and away, the leading cause of joint pain, it isn’t the only cause. Our team of musculoskeletal...

The human body is an engineering marvel and designed to be mostly self-sufficient thanks in large part to its ability to heal itself. There are times, however, when the damage can overwhelm this healing system, and we turn to interventional therapies.  While effective, we still believe that using the body’s...

To say that joint pain among Americans is prevalent would be an understatement. Arthritis, which is the leading driver of joint pain, affects nearly 54 million adults in the United States, half of whom struggle with persistent pain. Our team here at Summit Pain Alliance understands all to well the...

Are you struggling with unexplained pain or numbness and tingling in your shoulders, arms, and hands? The explanation may lie in one of the sensitive nerve roots that branch out from your cervical spine. When a nerve root is irritated or compressed in your neck, not only can local symptoms...

The prevalence of chronic pain in the United States is alarming — more than 20% of the adult population reports ongoing issues with pain, and 8% of adults experience high-impact pain. While many conditions drive chronic pain, only a few lead to widespread pain. At Summit Pain Alliance, our highly...

Your neck is not only responsible for supporting your head, but it also provides a wide range of motion. When neck pain strikes, the effect not only leads to discomfort, it can limit your life in some very serious ways. As part of our wide range of services here at...

The current number of people with arthritis in the United States has already risen above 54 million and this number is expected to rise to 78 million by 2040 thanks to an aging population. Unfortunately, there’s no cure for arthritis, but there are ways that you can offset the effects...

The prevalence of headaches in the United States is eye-opening — migraines alone affect one in four households, to say nothing of tension headaches, cluster headaches, and post-traumatic headaches. In fact, there are more than 150 different types of primary and secondary headaches and most people experience at least one...

The numbers surrounding the prevalence of peripheral neuropathy are tough to come by. As the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke points out, more than 20 million people are estimated to have some form of peripheral neuropathy, but this number may be much higher as the condition is both...

Sciatica is a common condition that can cause a considerable amount of pain that begins in your lower back and radiates down through your lower extremities. If you’re struggling with this problem, there are a few steps that you can take to ease your pain and prevent it from returning...

Everybody from professional athletes to people injured at work or at the gym are increasingly turning to regenerative medicine treatments like platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections to help with everything from joint pain and deterioration to tendon tears.  Platelet-rich plasma therapy uses the body’s own mechanisms for healing to turbocharge recovery...

Back and neck pain have a way of hijacking your life, limiting you in almost every way, making relief your main objective. While addressing the underlying cause of your pain is important, so, too, is finding long term relief. While medications may provide some respite, they are short-acting, which is...

Your knees are your largest joints and arguably the hardest-working, given all that they do to enable support, mobility, and range of motion. So when your knees are in pain, it can limit your life in significant ways, leaving you to search for solutions. One such solution may lie in...

Given the widespread opioid epidemic that’s killed 47,000 people at last official count in 2017, the last thing you want to do is take potentially addictive medication to solve your symptoms. But living with chronic back pain isn’t an option either. So what can you do? Dr. Michael Yang and...

This is big news for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) patients: 11 percent of the world’s population suffers from IBS, but the fight against chronic pain has taken a major step forward with scientists identifying receptors in the nervous system which cause the condition in the hope of developing effective treatments....

Conotoxins are bioactive peptides found in the venom that marine cone snails produce for prey capture and defense. They are used as pharmacological tools to study pain signalling and have the potential to become a new class of analgesics. To date, more than 10,000 conotoxin sequences have been discovered. Associate...

One of the worst symptoms associated with inflammation or cancer of the pancreas is severe chronic pain. Pancreatic pain is difficult to treat, because many painkillers prove ineffective in pancreatic patients. In a recent study, a team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) discovered the cause of this phenomenon...

People with persistent back pain or persistent headaches are twice as likely to suffer from both disorders, a new study from the University of Warwick has revealed. The results, published in the Journal of Headache and Pain, suggest an association between the two types of pain that could point to...

When you experience severe pain, like breaking or shattering a bone, the pain isn’t just felt at the sight of the injury. There is an entire network of receptors in your body running from the site of the injury, through your nervous system, along the spine and into the brain...

Sonoma Magazine’s Top Doctor survey is submitted every year to Sonoma County doctors who are asked which medical specialist they would most often recommend to a loved one. This year, more than 400 professionals emerged as the best in their specialty fields in Mendocino, Lake, Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties,...

Researchers at UC San Francisco and the University of Queensland have discovered a scorpion toxin that targets the “wasabi receptor,” a chemical-sensing protein found in nerve cells that’s responsible for the sinus-jolting sting of wasabi and the flood of tears associated with chopping onions. Because the toxin triggers a pain...

“Acupressure is similar to acupuncture, but instead of needles, pressure is applied with a finger, thumb or device to specific points on the body,” says Susan Murphy, ScD, OTR, an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine and lead author of the study. Murphy says that while...

Researchers used the National Health Interview Survey, a large national representative dataset from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to estimate the prevalence of chronic pain among cancer survivors. They found that about 35 percent of cancer survivors have chronic pain, representing 5.39 million patients in the United...

Afflicting more than one billion adults worldwide, migraine is the third most prevalent illness in the world. In addition to severe headache, symptoms of migraine can include nausea, changes in mood, sensitivity to light and sound, as well as visual and auditory hallucinations. People who suffer from migraine report that...

Pelvic pain associated with endometriosis often becomes chronic and can persist (or recur) following surgical and hormonal interventions. According to results published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, treating pelvic floor muscle spasm with botulinum toxin may relieve pain and improve quality of life. The study was conducted by scientists at...

Adolescent girls who reach puberty at an earlier age may also have a greater chance of developing migraine headaches, according to new research from investigators at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine. “We know that the percentage of girls and boys who have migraine is pretty much the...

An international team spearheaded by researchers at McGill University has discovered a biological mechanism that could explain heightened somatic awareness, a condition where patients experience physical discomforts for which there is no physiological explanation. Patients with heightened somatic awareness often experience unexplained symptoms — headaches, sore joints, nausea, constipation or...

Migraine sufferers who used a smartphone-based relaxation technique at least twice a week experienced on average four fewer headache days per month, a new study shows. Developed in part by researchers at NYU School of Medicine, the app, called RELAXaHEAD, guides patients through progressive muscle relaxation, or PMR. In this...

Tart cherry reduces the musculoskeletal effects of aromatase inhibitors in patients with non-metastatic breast cancer, according to new findings from a clinical trial by researchers at Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and Edwards Comprehensive Cancer Center. Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are a standard treatment for hormone receptor-positive breast...

A previously unknown autoimmune muscle disease involving sudden onset of debilitating muscle pain and weakness has been identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The syndrome easily could be mistaken for other muscle diseases that require different treatment, so the findings are expected to help...

For patients with severe, chronic back and leg pain, a new high-frequency spinal cord stimulation (SCS) technique provides superior clinical outcomes, compared to conventional low-frequency SCS, reports a clinical trial. For patients with severe, chronic back and leg pain, a new high-frequency spinal cord stimulation (SCS) technique provides superior clinical...

A woman in Scotland can feel virtually no pain due to a mutation in a previously-unidentified gene, according to a research paper co-led by UCL. She also experiences very little anxiety and fear, and may have enhanced wound healing due to the mutation, which the researchers say could help guide...

Researchers from Hebrew SeniorLife’s Institute for Aging Research, and Boston Medical Center have reported that one-third of people 40-59 years have image-based evidence of moderate to severe degenerative disc disease and more than half had moderate to severe spinal osteoarthritis. Beyond that, the prevalence of disc height narrowing and joint...

For migraine sufferers with obesity, losing weight can decrease headaches and improve quality of life, researchers from Italy and the United States report. The results of their meta-analysis will be presented Saturday, March 23 at ENDO 2019, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, La. “If you suffer from...

Patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis often are affected by functional disability a year or two before the disease is diagnosed, according to new Mayo Clinic research. The results of the study, to be published in June in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, suggest that daily activities such as eating, dressing and walking are...

In a Journal of the American Geriatrics Society study, many well-functioning and highly active older adults experienced back pain, which was linked with poorer perceived and observed walking endurance. “Older adults are living longer and healthier active lives, so paying attention to conditions that may threaten independent function is increasingly important,” said...

A stunning one-third of people with a cancer diagnosis use complementary and alternative medicines such as meditation, yoga, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and supplements. UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Dr. Nina Sanford made the discovery that’s now drawing renewed attention to habits she said cancer patients must disclose during treatment. Dr. Sanford...

Gender stereotypes can hurt children — quite literally. When asked to assess how much pain a child is experiencing based on the observation of identical reactions to a finger-stick, American adults believe boys to be in more pain than girls, according to a new Yale study in the Journal of Pediatric...

Ancient acupuncture and modern myofascial pain therapy each focus on hundreds of similar points on the body to treat pain, although they do it differently, says a physician at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville who analyzed the two techniques. Results of the study, published by the Journal of Complementary and Alternative...

A new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, UT Health Science Center at Houston and Baylor College of Medicine has produced evidence of the source of chronic pain in humans, revealing several new targets for pain treatment. The paper — published...

For the first time, researchers have evidence that fibromyalgia can be reliably detected in blood samples – work they hope will pave the way for a simple, fast diagnosis. In a study that appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from The Ohio State University report success in identifying biomarkers...

Additionally, more than 25 percent of migraine patients who had stopped consuming or never consumed alcoholic beverages did so because of presumed trigger effects. Wine, especially red wine (77.8 percent of participants), was recognized as the most common trigger among the alcoholic beverages; however, red wine consistently led to an...

A new study, published Feb. 20, 2019, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, tracked the impact of a program for low-income, at-risk patients with chronic pain at Tom Waddell Urban Health Clinic, in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, a public health facility where UCSF medical students are trained and mentored. The...

A breakthrough test developed by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers to measure pain in patients could help stem the tide of the opioid crisis in Indiana, and throughout the rest of the nation. A study led by psychiatry professor Alexander Niculescu, MD, PhD and published this week in the...

After one night of inadequate sleep, brain activity ramps up in pain-sensing regions while activity is scaled back in areas responsible for modulating how we perceive painful stimuli. This finding, published in JNeurosci, provides the first brain-based explanation for the well-established relationship between sleep and pain. In two studies — one...

Slowly but surely, the stigma surrounding marijuana use is losing its grip in the U.S. Since the 1990s, advocates have pushed for a re-evaluation of cannabis (the plant species name often used interchangeably with marijuana) as a viable treatment for a host of ailments. As of 2018, 33 states and...

Back pain is among the most frequently reported health problems in the world. New research published in Arthritis Care & Research, an official journal of the American College of Rheumatology and the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals, examines patterns in back pain over time and identifies the patient characteristics and the...

Scientists increasingly believe that one of the driving forces in chronic pain — the number one health problem in both prevalence and burden — appears to be the memory of earlier pain. Research published today/this week in Current Biology suggests that there may be variations, based on sex, in the way that...

A growing body of evidence supports the effectiveness of botulinum toxin injections in reducing the frequency of chronic migraine headaches, concludes an updated review and analysis in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®. Based on meta-analysis of pooled clinical trial data, botulinum toxin is superior to inactive placebo for...

Superior Diagnosis and Treatment of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Are you experiencing unexplained moderate-to-severe pain and seeking to find the cause? You may have been on a long journey for a concrete diagnosis. Perhaps your physician suggested that your symptoms could possibly be due to CRPS–Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. There...

New research shows that chronic sleep loss increases pain sensitivity. It suggests that chronic pain sufferers can get relief by getting more sleep, or, short of that, taking medications to promote wakefulness such as caffeine. New research from Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) shows that...

Researchers found that gently stroking a baby seems to reduce activity in the infant brain associated with painful experiences. Their results, appearing December 17 in the journal Current Biology, suggest that lightly brushing an infant at a certain speed — of approximately 3 centimeters per second — could provide effective pain...

Probe being applied to nerve root. Credit: Radiological Society of North America A minimally invasive procedure in which pulses of energy from a probe are applied directly to nerve roots near the spine is safe and effective in people with acute lower back pain that has not responded to conservative...

Expect a shot to hurt and it probably will, even if the needle poke isn’t really so painful. Brace for a second shot and you’ll likely flinch again, even though — second time around — you should know better. That’s the takeaway of a new brain imaging study published in...

Almost 60 per cent of truck drivers in a recent study reported experiencing musculoskeletal (MSD) pain and discomfort on the job, even though it may be preventable. “Given the fact that MSDs account for nearly one-half of all work-related illnesses and the transportation sector makes up a significant portion of...

Scientists have found a correlation between a disease involving chronic pain and alterations in the gut microbiome. Fibromyalgia affects 2-4 percent of the population and has no known cure. Symptoms include fatigue, impaired sleep and cognitive difficulties, but the disease is most clearly characterized by widespread chronic pain. In a...

Researchers at Boston Medical Center found that frequent, persistent back pain is associated with earlier death in a study of more than 8,000 older women who were followed for an average of 14 years. After controlling for important sociodemographic and health factors, women who reported frequent, persistent back pain had...

People with treatment-resistant back pain may get significant and lasting relief with dorsal root ganglion (DRG) stimulation therapy, an innovative treatment that short-circuits pain, suggests a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2018 annual meeting. Chronic pain — pain that lasts three months or more — occurs when nerves continue to...

A study led by Boston Children’s Hospital and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) may open up new opportunities for treating neuropathic pain, a difficult-to-treat type of chronic pain due to damage to the nervous system that can make the lightest touch intensely painful. In a report today in...

Dr Max Ortiz Catalan of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, has developed a new theory for the origin of the mysterious condition, ‘phantom limb pain’. Published in the journal Frontiers in Neurology, his hypothesis builds upon his previous work on a revolutionary treatment for the condition, that uses machine learning and...

Ever wonder why some people seem to feel less pain than others? A study conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine may have found one of the answers — mindfulness. “Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment,” said the study’s...

With the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine have been working to find a safe, non-addictive pain killer to help fight the current opioid crisis in this country. And they may have done just that, though in an animal model. Known...

A fight with a spouse may end in hurt feelings, but for those with chronic conditions like arthritis or diabetes, those arguments may have physical repercussions as well, according to researchers. They found that in two groups of older individuals — one group with arthritis and one with diabetes —...

AUGUST 2018 – NEWSLETTER – Summit Pain Alliance This month is full with exciting new projects. Sadly we have to say good bye to one of our providers but we won’t let this slow us down in our efforts of keep offering our patients with the latest technology and advances...

Research published today reveals a potential mechanism for migraine causation which could explain why women get more migraines than men. The study, in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, suggests that sex hormones affect cells around the trigeminal nerve and connected blood vessels in the head, with estrogens — at their highest levels...

The word inflammation comes from the Latin word inflammationem, which means “a setting on fire.” Certainly anyone who has experienced the feelings of heat, redness, swelling, pain and burning that makes the origin of this word an accurate description. But what exactly is inflammation and how can it hurt—as well as...

In a new study published in the journal Peer J this week, researchers at UniSA’s Body in Mind Research Group have found people suffering osteoarthritis in the knees reported reduced pain when exposed to visual illusions that altered the size of their knees. UniSA researcher and NHMRC Career Development Fellow,...

A new study of injured athletes carried out by the University of Kent found they can benefit from using mindfulness as part of the sport rehabilitation process to improve their pain tolerance and awareness. The research, carried out by Dr Warhel Asim Mohammed and Dr Athanasios Pappous (School of Sport...

Stopping long-term opioid treatment does not make chronic, non-cancer-related pain worse and, in some cases, makes it better, Washington State University researchers have found. The research marks a crucial first step towards understanding how ending long-term opioid therapy affects patients with different types of chronic pain and could help medical...

The nauseating, often debilitating, headaches affect 15-20 percent of adults in developed countries, yet they remain stubbornly hard to explain. Scientists know that migraines tend to run in families but aren’t sure exactly how. A new study published in the journal Neuron shows why some families are susceptible to migraines and how...

Fibromyalgia and resistance exercise have often been considered an impossible combination. But with proper support and individually adjusted exercises, female patients achieved considerable health improvements, according to research carried out at Sahlgrenska Academy, Sweden. “If the goal for these women is to improve their strength, then they shouldn’t be afraid...

Patients with low-back pain are better off seeing a physical therapist first, according to a study of 150,000 insurance claims. The study, published in Health Services Research, found that those who saw a physical therapist at the first point of care had an 89 percent lower probability of receiving an opioid...

At Summit Pain Alliance we are proud to take part in the evolution of medical technology. We are constantly working to make our solutions more effective for our patients, with several ongoing clinical trials and many more to come we can do just that. Our highly trained Clinical Research Team...

Experiencing trauma as a child may influence how much pain an individual feels in adulthood, according to Penn State researchers. Gaining insight about who feels more pain and why is important as issues like the opioid crisis continue to escalate. The researchers found that experiencing trauma or adversity in childhood...

A female brain’s resident immune cells are more active in regions involved in pain processing relative to males, according to a recent study by Georgia State University researchers. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that when microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells, were blocked, female response to opioid...

Imagine that the movement of a single hair on your arm causes severe pain. For patients with neuropathic pain — a chronic illness affecting 20 million people in the United States, with no effective treatment — this can be a daily reality. Scientists from EMBL Rome have now identified a...

In a study of 588 patients who attended an outpatient headache clinic, more frequent migraines were experienced by participants with symptoms of anxiety and depression. In the Headache study, poor sleep quality was also found to be an independent predictor of more severe depression and anxiety symptoms. The study’s investigators noted that...

Summit Pain Alliance announces participation in a new study and is currently enrolling patients with low back pain for testing Thimble Bioelectronics. The study’s name is ENSO pain study. We are testing a new device called ENSO, a wearable neuromodulation device. This non- invasive neuromodulation technology delivers electrical pulses which relax muscles and...

Pain can be valuable. Without it, we might let our hand linger on a hot stove, for example. But longer-lasting pain, such as the inflammatory pain that can arise after injury, can be debilitating and costly, preventing us from completing important tasks. In natural settings, the lethargy triggered by such...

Reach for the hand of a loved one in pain and not only will your breathing and heart rate synchronize with theirs, your brain wave patterns will couple up too, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study, by researchers...

On Friday, February 23rd, Summit Pain Alliance’s last patient enrolled for the Evoke Study with Saluda Medical was implanted at Sonoma Valley Hospital by Dr. Eric Lee. This implant closes the door to new enrollments since enrollment has now been reached. Congratulations to our Providers, Managers, Surgery Schedulers, Psychologists, Research staff and everybody involved for your hard work...

 In a Journal of the American Geriatrics Society study, many well-functioning and highly active older adults experienced back pain, which was linked with poorer perceived and observed walking endurance.   “Older adults are living longer and healthier active lives, so paying attention to conditions that may threaten independent function is increasingly important,”...

New research reports that hyperreactive brain networks could play a part in the hypersensitivity of fibromyalgia. A new study finds that patients with fibromyalgia have brain networks primed for rapid, global responses to minor changes. This abnormal hypersensitivity, called explosive synchronization (ES), can be seen in other network phenomena across...

Tai Chi, a low-impact mind-body exercise, can be as effective as neck exercises in relieving persistent neck pain, according to results of randomized controlled trial.  Tai Chi, a low-impact mind-body exercise, can be as effective as neck exercises in relieving persistent neck pain, according to results of randomized controlled trial...

Sonoma Magazine’s Top Doctor survey was submitted to Sonoma County doctors who were then asked which medical specialist they would most often recommend to a loved one, and more than 300 professionals emerged as top docs in 50 categories of medicine. The research organization tasked with this survey deems that medical professionals...

In a pioneering study, researchers used fMRI technology to show that a person’s ability to reinterpret negative events and to control feelings influences how strongly a placebo will work to reduce pain. In a pioneering study, researchers at the University of Luxembourg used fMRI technology to show that a person’s...

Many patients live with low back pain that radiates to the buttock, groin, thigh, and even knees. The challenge for patients, and often their doctors, is determining the origin of the pain — the hip, the spine, or both. An article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic...

Yoga and physical therapy (PT) are effective approaches to treating co-occurring sleep disturbance and back pain while reducing the need for medication, according to a new study from Boston Medical Center (BMC). Published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the research showed significant improvements in sleep quality lasting 52 weeks...

In the U.S., about 13 percent of women and 10 percent of men aged 60 or older have knee pain due to osteoarthritis (OA). Osteoarthritis occurs when a joint becomes inflamed, usually because the protective cartilage and other tissues that cushion joints like the knee become damaged and worn over...