Without question, the best thing about my job is having the privilege of speaking with experts across the entire spectrum of health and medicine to ask some of the most vexing questions that everyday people like me and my loved ones are dealing with.

Motivated by questions about chronic pain due to a severe leg injury my mom endured a couple of years ago, I reached out to our communication partners at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, which is near my home. They connected me with anesthesiologist and pain management specialist Rachael Rzasa Lynn, who spoke with me about promising treatments for people suffering with chronic pain, for The Conversation’s Weekly podcast.

In an accompanying article, Rzasa Lynn explains the science behind the most common forms of chronic pain, how doctors measure pain levels and the need for individualized approaches to pain treatment.

“My goal and my No. 1 hope for the future of pain medicine is that researchers find a better way of predicting who is going to respond to a particular treatment, which would allow them to match each patient to the right treatment regimen the first time,” she writes.

Please listen to the podcast and share with others if you’re inspired to!

Also in this week’s science news:

If there’s a subject you’d like our team of science editors to investigate, please reply to this email.

Amanda Mascarelli

Senior Health and Medicine Editor
New treatments for pain are on the horizon, but for many sufferers of chronic pain, they can’t arrive soon enough. Olga Rolenko/Moment via Getty Images

New treatments offer much-needed hope for patients suffering from chronic pain

Rachael Rzasa Lynn, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

A pain management specialist explains some of the new developments in pain treatment and why there’s hope for patients with chronic pain.
ADHD is characterized by symptoms such as inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Nuthawut Somsuk/iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images

ADHD brains present unique challenges, but the condition is highly treatable − a primary care nurse practitioner with ADHD explains the science

Kate Harrington, Kennesaw State University

Navigating life with ADHD or as a parent of a child with ADHD can be stressful. But as researchers learn more about the uniqueness of brains with ADHD, they are also gleaning insight into treatments.
Trees and other plants can’t escape wildfire smoke. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Trees don’t like to breathe wildfire smoke, either – and they’ll hold their breath to avoid it

Delphine Farmer, Colorado State University; Mj Riches, Colorado State University

An unplanned experiment when wildfire smoke rolled through Colorado shows how trees keep some of the smoke out.

Iceland’s recent volcanic eruptions driven by pooling magma are set to last centuries into the future

James Day, University of California, San Diego

The eruptions that began in 2021 in Iceland could last for centuries, which is bad news for Icelanders but good news for scientists seeking to understand how the inner Earth works.

Moms think more about household chores − and this cognitive burden hurts their mental health

Darby Saxbe, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; Lizzie Aviv, University of Southern California

Moms execute more household tasks. But they’re also family executives, doing more of the thinking ahead and assigning that are part of all those chores – bad news for their mental health.

Hospital-acquired infections are rising – here’s how to protect yourself in health care settings

Nasia Safdar, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Some of the infections are showing an increased resistance to antibiotics.

Xylazine wounds are a growing crisis among drug users in Philly − a nurse explains potential causes and proper treatment

Rachel McFadden, University of Pennsylvania

The wounds contain black and yellow dead tissue and tunnel deep into the skin. Deep stigma around them can make getting treatment difficult.