Epidural Corticosteroid Injection: FDA Drug Safety Communication - Risk of Rare But Serious Neurologic Problems

Epidural injections are a very common medical procedure in which cortisone type substances are injected into the spinal canal. Did you know that this practice is not approved by the FDA? There is also no evidence that they produce long term improvement.Here is a recent FDA Safety Alert from FDA website.

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm394530.htm

Surge in Narcotic Prescriptions for Pregnant Women

Wow, I just posted a new study showing that 46% of adolescents were prescribed narcotic drugs for headaches and now a new study shows that 26% of pregnant women on Medicaid were prescribed narcotic drugs during pregnancy. Again the lead author of this study was surprised by the findings. Unfortunately neither this article or the journal article mentioned chiropractic treatment as a much safer alternative.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/science/surge-in-prescriptions-for-opioid-painkillers-for-pregnant-women.html

Narcotics for Teen Headaches: Medical Care May be the Wrong Choice

Here is a blog article by a chiropractic colleague based on a study from the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Researchers looked at the insurance data from 8,373 13- to 17-year-olds who visited a medical clinician for headache (which is a common ailment in adolescents) and found a shocking amount of narcotics prescribed.
• 46% of teens were given a prescription for a narcotic.
• 23% got two prescriptions.
• 29% got three or more prescriptions.
So why and how does this happen? How can half of mainstream medicine be so distanced from the medical research as to give a child highly addictive pain medication for a condition that it should not be used for?

http://lifecarechiropractic.com/blog/headache-in-teenagers/?doing_wp_cron=1396531253.5940539836883544921875