In particular, problems were identified in alerting medical staff that a resident was in pain: "Every now and again the GP does not want to listen when we really do believe the person is in pain", "it's variable, some listen, others discount us", and "staff need to do more to pick the pain and suffering of residents".
But no one else had complained of the sharp ice-pick pain that now dominated her daily life.
Ice-pick pain or ophtalmodynia periodica consists of unilateral, ultrashort and localized stabs of pain in the distribution of the first branch of the trigeminal nerve and occurs in the absence of organic disease.
And AxyS Pharmaceuticals, also based in South San Francisco, is working with Roche, a Swiss drug firm, to use C. elegans to pick out pain-related genes, with a view to developing novel pain-killers.
To start, LearnVest picked a pain point that really needed a solution.
We suggested a preventive treatment with Boswellia serrata 350-three times a day which stopped completely the reccurent ice-pick pains for the entire period of pregnancy.
Because these drugs were contraindicated in her status, we used Capsaicin nasal spray which improved the reccurent ice-pick pains-4-5 attacks per day, but with extreme headache-related disability.
"You pick your pet pain medicines that work for you," said Dr. Dennis S. O'Leary, president of the Joint Commission.
It's best to pick one major pain point to address and go with it.
We don't need to pick up that pain; we can let it stay where it came from.
As the technician was injecting contrast dye into her veins, the patient felt an ice pick of pain shoot from the top of her skull past her ears and down to her clavicle.
