More than 100 million Americans—about a third of the population—suffer from chronic pain. More people are affected by chronic pain than by heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, and at a cost of more than $600 billion a year in medical treatments and lost productivity. A free presentation, “Tame Your Pain ... An Inside Look at Conventional and Alternative Therapies for Pain Management,” will be held Wednesday, March 1, 6-7:15 p.m., at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson, DuVal Auditorium, 1501 N. Campbell Ave., Tucson. The 75-minute talk will include time for questions and answers.
Pain alerts us that something is wrong, but when it persists for an extended period of time after healing it becomes chronic pain. Pain that fails to serve a protective function is pathological pain. Arthritis causes the most common type of pathological pain.
Pain can be considered a disease, not just a symptom of a disease. Pain specialists identify the type of pain and tailor the therapy accordingly. There is no “one size fits all.” Most pain specialists will avoid opioid medications to manage arthritis pain. Opioids are good for the short term, but when taken chronically, negative factors emerge which may outweigh the benefit of pain control.
Speaker Mohab Ibrahim, MD, PhD, director of the Comprehensive Pain Management Clinic at Banner – University Medical Center South, UA assistant professor of anesthesiology and pharmacology, and director of the Chronic Pain Fellowship Program at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson, will present a detailed discussion of the causes of chronic pain and the current available treatments for arthritis and related joint pain, including the associated side effects.
Dr. Ibrahim will present the latest conventional and alternative approaches to pain management while highlighting the facts, fads and fiction associated with this complex medical issue.
Dr. Ibrahim earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in biochemistry and a master’s degree and doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Arizona. He graduated from the UA College of Medicine – Tucson in 2008, followed by a surgical internship at the UA. He completed his residency in anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, followed by a clinical pain medicine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School's largest teaching hospital and biomedical research facility. He is highly regarded for his work on pain management and reduction across a multitude of ailments and diseases and has been published numerous times on this and related subjects.
Seating for the lecture is limited and prior registration is requested. For more information or to register, please visit the UA Arthritis Center website, www.arthritis.arizona.edu, or call 520-626-5040 or email livinghealthy@arthritis.arizona.edu
Parking is available in the Banner – University Medical Center Tucson visitor/patient parking garage just south of the hospital’s main entrance; please bring your parking ticket to the lecture to be validated for free parking.
The lecture is part of the “Living Healthy with Arthritis” series of free monthly talks presented by the UA Arthritis Center at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson and supported through the Susan and Saul Tobin Endowment for Research and Education in Rheumatology. Upcoming lectures in the spring 2017 series include:
- Wednesday, April 5, Charles Katzenberg, MD, UA Sarver Heart Center; professor of medicine, UA College of Medicine – Tucson
- Wednesday, May 3, Sairam Parthasarathy, MD, director, UA Center for Sleep Disorders; program director, UA Sleep Medicine Fellowship Program; professor of medicine, UA College of Medicine – Tucson
Both lectures will be held 6-7:15 p.m., at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson, DuVal Auditorium.
About the University of Arizona Arthritis Center
The University of Arizona Arthritis Center, a Center of Excellence at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson, is a research leader with a focus on identifying the causes of arthritis and developing improved diagnosis, measurement and treatment of the disease. For more information, please visit www.arthritis.arizona.edu
About the University of Arizona Health Sciences
The University of Arizona Health Sciences is the statewide leader in biomedical research and health professions training. The UA Health Sciences includes the UA Colleges of Medicine (Phoenix and Tucson), Nursing, Pharmacy and Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, with main campus locations in Tucson and the growing Phoenix Biomedical Campus in downtown Phoenix. From these vantage points, the UA Health Sciences reaches across the state of Arizona and the greater Southwest to provide cutting-edge health education, research, patient care and community outreach services. A major economic engine, the UA Health Sciences employs almost 5,000 people, has nearly 1,000 faculty members and garners more than $126 million in research grants and contracts annually. For more information: uahs.arizona.edu
Media Contact: Tracy Shake