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The month of September serves as an annual reminder of a growing issue in America: chronic pain.

According to a recent analysis by the National Institute of Health (NIH), an estimated 23.4 million adults (approximately 10 percent of the population) experience severe pain, and 126 million Americans (approximately 55 percent of the population) have reported some degree of pain in the last three months. This has led to estimated medical expenditures of nearly $635 billion. 

“While we have this unmet need for under-treated pain in the U.S., we also have a growing issue of prescription opioid misuse,” shared Dr. Chris Herndon, associate professor in the SIUE School of Pharmacy and SIUE’s National Institute of Health Centers of Excellence in Pain Education (NIH CoEPE) principal investigator. “Patients are limited due to non-opioid treatment options frequently being unaffordable and not covered by insurance.”

Having been one of 12 institutions selected to serve as a CoEPE by the NIH in 2012, SIUE recently renewed its contract with the institute to receive continued financial support in the area of pain research for up to five additional years. As an original NIH CoEPE institution, SIUE acts as a hub for the development, evaluation and distribution of pain management curriculum resources for medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy schools, in an effort to enhance how health care professionals are taught about pain and its treatment.

Researchers at SIUE have several pain-related interests, including musculoskeletal, neuropathic, arthritic and headache pain, as well as rehabilitation from these disorders. Additionally, SIUE professors have adjusted their curricula to include:

• The pathophysiology and pharmacology of pain and its treatment
• The latest research in complementary and integrative pain management
• Factors that contribute to both under- and over-prescribing of pain medications
• How pain manifests itself differently by gender, in children, in older adults and in diverse populations

 “CoEPEs can help prevent negative opioid dependency outcomes by designing curricula that promote appropriate screening and management of chronic pain patients, along with education about the risks of prescription drug abuse,” explained Dr. Nora D. Volkow, NIDA director and member of the NIH CoEPE consortium’s executive committee.

In previous years, the NIH has supported $386 million worth of pain-related research projects.

“As advanced as our healthcare system has become, we are still failing miserably at handling perhaps the biggest issue facing public health,” Herndon said. “Chronic pain is more prevalent than diabetes or heart disease, yet we have little long-term data as to how to treat these folks. These patients and their providers frequently must weigh the potential benefits of opioid analgesics against a growing understanding of their associated risks, including addiction.”

SIUE’s CoEPE team is comprised of the following:

Dr. Chris Herndon, principal investigator and associate professor of pharmacy practice, School of Pharmacy, teaches a pain and palliative care course for pharmacy students and sees chronic pain patients at a Belleville-based family medicine clinic.

Dr. McKenzie Ferguson, associate professor of pharmacy practice, School of Pharmacy, teaches a pain and palliative care course for pharmacy students and compares treatment modalities for the Cochrane Collaborative, the world authority on evidence-based medicine.

Dr. Keith Hecht, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice, School of Pharmacy, teaches a pain and palliative care course for pharmacy students and provides pharmaceutical care for hospitalized cancer patients with pain and palliative care needs.

Dr. Becky Luebbert, assistant professor of nursing, School of Nursing, teaches and researches the protection of vulnerable and at-risk groups and the care of those with medical issues at risk for psychiatric comorbidities.

Dr. Kevin Rowland, assistant professor of applied dental medicine, School of Dental Medicine, teaches the physiology of pain production to first year dental students and in his laboratory studies the mechanisms underlying the generation of chronic orofacial pain.

SIUE faculty researching pain management outside the scope of CoEPE include:

Dr. Brianne Guilford, assistant professor of kinesiology and health education, School of Education, Health and Human Behavior, leads basic science research with a focus on painful sensory nerve disorders. Her current project involves investigating mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of diabetic neuropathy in a mouse model. 

Dr. Bill Neumann, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, School of Pharmacy, is developing pharmaceutical strategies to prevent opioid tolerance and chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathic pain.

Photo: Dr. Chris Herndon, associate professor in the SIUE School of Pharmacy.