Sanjay Gupta

Nerve block.

I saw a 76-year-old gentleman come into the ER with a broken hip, broke the top of his femur, and got a nerve block and was lying there comfortably and was able to never need opioids, which was incredible.

Ketamine is another one that they're using for acute pain control.

And, you know, I'm not suggesting these are panaceas, but they're as effective as giving an opioid, which is what these patients would have received.

Another woman came in with bilateral knee pain, and they put virtual reality goggles on her and took her on a trip to a nice Indonesian beach, and her pain score has dropped from an 8 to a 3.

And again, these things have a half-life.

It's not like they're walking out of there pain-free for the rest of their life, but they have similar half-life to the medications that they would have received.

So they're using, you know, we're such a monotherapy culture.

People always say, you know, do you use ibuprofen or do you use Tylenol?

Some of these hospitals, they're using both at the same time.

One of the doctors, Sergei Matov, he has really gotten quite expert at using IV acetaminophen, IV Tylenol, in addition to ibuprofen.

They work in different parts of the pain cascade.

So, you know, just all these different options from...

therapies or drugs or techniques that have existed for a long time.

But I think over the last 25 years have gotten short shrift because opioids have sucked up all the oxygen in the room.

Again, it's not that opioids can't be useful.

And I want to be careful because I know there's a lot of people for whom opioids may be a lifesaver.

But, you know, there's a lot of options that I think people hadn't heard of before.

That's the worst.

Yeah, there are all sorts of different options now for these types of pain.