Snail Venom For A Pain-Free Life

A snail found in the sea could be all it takes for millions of people to live pain-free.

Small but deadly, the Conus Magnus sea snail strikes its prey with venom a thousand times more potent than morphine, and its a synthetic form of this toxin that gives people like Dawn Campbell relief from her chronic pain. Campbells pain was so bad, she had to have 32 surgeries to relieve the discomfort in her bladder, back and legs.

You know when a fly or a bee keeps bothering you, and it wont go away? [The pain] just eats at you all the time, she says. After taking several types of pain medicine, Campbell decided to have her uterus, ovaries, and bladder removed.

Gladstone McDowell II, M.D. (pic), a pain management specialist at the Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, gave Campbell a synthetic version of sea snail venom called PRIALT. The drug is first delivered through a pump in the abdomen and fed through a catheter into the spine. This allows it to bind to the nerves that transmit the pain signals and stop these signals from being delivered to the brain. A small computer regulates the amount of medicine released into the body, and an alarm sounds if the pump begins to run low. Unlike other pain medications, PRIALT is not addictive, and patients wont develop a tolerance to it. The most common side effects are confusion, dizziness and nausea.

Nothing slows Dawn down now, Dr. McDowell says. Especially now that she has better pain control. After living the last 23 years with severe pain, Campbell says now she lives with less pain than ever before.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.