Eighteen years ago, when she was in her early 30s, Cindy Steinberg severely injured her back at work when an unsecured filing cabinet and the cubicle walls stacked behind it fell on her. Although the diagnosis for the product development manager at a learning-technology company just outside Harvard Square was torn ligaments and damaged nerves — between thoracic disc levels 7 and 10 — it took five years for doctors to find an effective combination of treatments for her chronic pain, including an opioid pain reliever called Lortab, which is similar to Vicodin. “I was in total disbelief that I could be in this much pain and there wasn’t anyone or anything that could really help me,” says Steinberg. Doctors treated her in a “demeaning, disbelieving, dismissive, and distrustful” manner, she adds.

The US Food and Drug Administration’s recent decision to restrict access to hydrocodone-containing drugs such as Vicodin may or not may not do anything to reduce the prescription drug abuse problem. But it will almost certainly hurt legitimate pain patients who need the drugs.

In a move designed to combat drug abuse but likely to put further burdens on pain patients, the US Food and Drug Administration yesterday announced that it is recommending tighter controls over opioid pain relievers such as Vicodin and Lortab that contain hydrocodone.

Pain relievers are in the news again — and the news isn’t great.

Acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is the focus of a series of scary investigative articles by ProPublica, the online new organization. The bottom line of the series: about 150 people per year die from accidentally taking too much acetaminophen, and even though the line between a therapeutic dose and a dangerous dose is slim, the FDA (and the drug companies that sell the products) have done little to warn consumers.

This may be the most delightful of all medical prescriptions: Chew a little raw garlic a couple of times a week and the risk of lung cancer drops by almost half. It drops by almost a third even if you’re a smoker.

You may be in for a shock if you try to get a prescription for any controlled substance – from Ambien to opioid pain relievers – filled at Walgreens anywhere around the country.

Overdose deaths linked to prescription pain relievers have increased dramatically among women in recent years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday.

And nobody really knows why.

So there I was at midnight, night after night, my neck pain screeching at a 10+++ on a scale of 10, popping ibuprofen by the handful, dutifully worrying about the well-known dangers of a painkiller-induced stomach bleed, but reassuring myself, “At least these pills are safe – not like opioids, the really dangerous stuff.”

If we’re ever going to get serious about gun control in this country, I have a simple suggestion: mobilize women.

As the success of Mothers Against Drunk Driving demonstrates, when women put their collective hearts and minds toward something, they get it done.

A few weeks ago, on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon, I got an urgent call on my cell phone from my daughter-in-law, Robin, a vigorous 42-year-old. She was calling from her health club, barely “10 minutes into a decent run” on the treadmill