Pain

The systemic sodium channel blocker suzetrigine may serve as another option for multimodal postoperative analgesia regimens and for managing acute nonsurgical pain.

It would be nice to have a treatment option for pain that is less limited by side effects, cognitive dysfunction, addiction potential, and red tape.

Nociplastic pain is characterized by amplification of pain transmission and pain perception and does not involve visible tissue injury or damage, which makes it difficult to understand and manage.

The authors review changes in prescribing laws and outline buprenorphine induction protocols that can be adopted in the primary care setting.

Care pathways for patients with trigeminal neuralgia vary widely. The most recent UK guidelines emphasize the need for evidence-based care plans for multidisciplinary management.

Clinicians have a pivotal role by providing patient education, which can affect perception, management, functional status, and quality of life.

Centralized pain syndromes are vexing for patients and clinicians. In this issue, Volcheck and colleagues present a framework for understanding chronic centralized pain and for developing an actionable treatment plan for patients.

Confirmatory testing of urine samples can be useful in outpatient settings where buprenorphine dosing is not directly observed. But retaining and engaging the patient in effective treatment should be the ultimate goals of testing.

Barriers to care include clinician misperceptions, lack of acceptance of the diagnosis, poor patient engagement with treatment, and lack of access to care.