When you are experiencing chronic pain, no matter the source or the cause, there is nothing you want more then to find relief. Chronic pain, including neuropathic pain stemming from degenerative disk disease, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, repetitive stress injuries and isolated accident-related injuries are a burden to the daily lives of our patients.
When the pain decreases, the healing can begin. Pharmacological pain management, including medications like ibuprofen based anti-inflammatories or epidural steroid injections are just part of a valuable set of tools we use today to get you back on your feet.
Current assessments indicate that as many as 20% of adults worldwide are currently being treated for chronic pain. 10% of these adults are newly diagnosed with chronic pain every year. Therefore, there is an obvious need to identify and develop new analgesics in order to better treat these unrelieved pain conditions.
We are always keeping our professionals up to date on the most current pharmaceutical research endeavors.
Let’s take a look together into the future of pain management: Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a neurotoxin found in puffer fish and other marine and terrestrial animals. TTX is a potent neurotoxin. There appears to be some research that indicates a role for TTX as a potential therapeutic agent for pain. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296997/ (Tetrodotoxin (TTX) as a Therapeutic Agent for Pain Department of Pharmacology and Institute of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada)
Even though Tetrodotoxin is a potentially lethal toxin, recently there have been many studies done on potential therapeutic effects, and the marketing of TTX as medication. http://nawrot.psych.ndsu.nodak.edu/courses/465Projects06/Tetrodotoxin/medical.html
The current gold standard for moderate to severe pain treatment is opioids, including drugs such as morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone. Opioids do, however, have limitations. Serious risk factors associated with opioids include respiratory, gastrointestinal and central nervous system side effects. Opioids can also be ineffective, as one in four patients fail opioid treatment. Finally, opioids have a risk of addiction and tolerance, which is a limiting factor in prescribing this class of drugs. http://www.wexpharma.com/products.asp?m=1
TTX is 2000 times more potent than morphine without the opioid-like side effects. It is non-addictive, with no tolerance issues, rapid onset and a long duration of action. http://www.wexpharma.com/products.asp?m=1
Wex Pharmacuticals, a subsidiary of CK Life Sciences Int’l based in Vancouver, BC, Canada has completed multiple clinical trials of TTX-based drugs (currently named Tetrodin, Tectin, and Tocadin) with hundreds of patients to look at pain specifically connected to the side effects of cancer treatment. While not yet approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, plans are to file request protocols with the FDA for both cancer-related pain and other indications of severe or chronic pain.
We want to be clear: This is the science of tomorrow. While TTX is not available as a treatment resource yet, this is exciting research news. We will continue to keep our professionals informed and our patients educated as we strive to provide you with state of the art pain relief.
