NBA commissioner David Stern has cancelled the first two weeks of the 2011-12 regular season after several hours of meetings failed to result in a new labour deal with players.

Stern said he is cancelling 100 scheduled regular season games through November 14 after the two sides in the contract dispute met for seven hours on Monday.

Stern said the latest effort to end the lockout of the players and begin the season on time failed because the owners and players are far apart on a number of key questions.

“We just have a gulf that separates us,” Stern said. “With every day that goes by, I think we need to look at further reductions in what’s left of the season.”

All of the NBA‘s 114 pre-season games have already been wiped out by the dispute.

No new talks have been scheduled but owners and players said they plan to keep in touch.

“I started out by saying I’m sorry to report, and I’m sad to report, that we’ve cancelled the first two weeks,” Stern said.

“We certainly hoped it would never come to this. We think that we made very fair proposals. I’m sure the players think the same thing. But the gap is so significant that we just can’t bridge it at this time.”

Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, owners Peter Holt of San Antonio, Glen Taylor of Minnesota and James Dolan of New York, and senior vice president and deputy general counsel Dan Rube represented the owners in talks on Monday.

They met with union executive director Billy Hunter, president Derek Fisher of the Los Angeles Lakers and vice president Maurice Evans of the Washington Wizards, and lawyers Jeffrey Kessler and Ron Klempner.

There is still three weeks before the start of the regular season, so the the two sides could still reach a deal in time or possibly end up in court.

Each has accused the other of unfair labour practices which the National Labor Relations Board is looking into. The owners also filed a lawsuit in US federal court against the players’ union.

Union brass have so far decided not to decertify like their counterparts with the National Football League, although the basketball players say they haven’t ruled out that option.

The owners locked out the players on July 1 when they failed to reach a deal before the expiration of the old collective bargaining agreement. The NBA’s opening night was scheduled for November 1.

Team owners and players have been haggling over how to divide $3.8 billion in annual revenues and also over salary cap issues.

The main stumbling block has been the issue of how to share basketball-related income. The owners want a 50-50 share of revenues while the players refuse to go below 53 percent.

The gap in their positions has been so wide it could now jeopardize the entire 2011-2012 campaign, says Fisher.

“This is not where we choose to be,” Fisher said. “We’re not at a place where a fair deal can be reached with the NBA.”

Earlier this year, owners angered the players with a proposal that called for salary rollbacks, shorter contracts and a hard salary cap of $45 million.

The only previous NBA season to be shortened because of money disputes was in 1998-99, when the season was cut to 50 games.

Only once in North American sports history has an entire season been lost to players and team owners being unable to agree upon financial terms, when the National Hockey League cancelled its 20Ǥ-2005 campaign.

NBA players reacted to the news with disappointment and expressed sympathy for the stadium workers who will lose their jobs.

“Genuinely sorry to all the employees in and around the NBA arenas losing work,” Phoenix star Steve Nash wrote on his social networking Twitter page.

“Thanks for the overwhelming support today guys. You know we want to play & you understand the propaganda/misinformation from the owners.”

LeBron James tweeted, “I wanna sincerely say sorry to all the fans! It’s such a sad day for all of us, especially u guys! There’s no US w/o You.”

Not all players seemed to be paying attention Monday night as about an hour after the news broke, Fishers’ teammate Lamar Odom tweeted on his page, “Time to tune in2 @KimKardashian’s #KimKWedding part 2! It is on E!”

NBA commissioner David Stern has cancelled the first two weeks of the 2011-12 regular season after several hours of meetings failed to result in a new labour deal with players.

Stern said he is cancelling 100 scheduled regular season games through November 14 after the two sides in the contract dispute met for seven hours on Monday.

Stern said the latest effort to end the lockout of the players and begin the season on time failed because the owners and players are far apart on a number of key questions.

“We just have a gulf that separates us,” Stern said. “With every day that goes by, I think we need to look at further reductions in what’s left of the season.”

All of the NBA‘s 114 pre-season games have already been wiped out by the dispute.

No new talks have been scheduled but owners and players said they plan to keep in touch.

“I started out by saying I’m sorry to report, and I’m sad to report, that we’ve cancelled the first two weeks,” Stern said.

“We certainly hoped it would never come to this. We think that we made very fair proposals. I’m sure the players think the same thing. But the gap is so significant that we just can’t bridge it at this time.”

Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, owners Peter Holt of San Antonio, Glen Taylor of Minnesota and James Dolan of New York, and senior vice president and deputy general counsel Dan Rube represented the owners in talks on Monday.

They met with union executive director Billy Hunter, president Derek Fisher of the Los Angeles Lakers and vice president Maurice Evans of the Washington Wizards, and lawyers Jeffrey Kessler and Ron Klempner.

There is still three weeks before the start of the regular season, so the the two sides could still reach a deal in time or possibly end up in court.

Each has accused the other of unfair labour practices which the National Labor Relations Board is looking into. The owners also filed a lawsuit in US federal court against the players’ union.

Union brass have so far decided not to decertify like their counterparts with the National Football League, although the basketball players say they haven’t ruled out that option.

The owners locked out the players on July 1 when they failed to reach a deal before the expiration of the old collective bargaining agreement. The NBA’s opening night was scheduled for November 1.

Team owners and players have been haggling over how to divide $3.8 billion in annual revenues and also over salary cap issues.

The main stumbling block has been the issue of how to share basketball-related income. The owners want a 50-50 share of revenues while the players refuse to go below 53 percent.

The gap in their positions has been so wide it could now jeopardize the entire 2011-2012 campaign, says Fisher.

“This is not where we choose to be,” Fisher said. “We’re not at a place where a fair deal can be reached with the NBA.”

Earlier this year, owners angered the players with a proposal that called for salary rollbacks, shorter contracts and a hard salary cap of $45 million.

The only previous NBA season to be shortened because of money disputes was in 1998-99, when the season was cut to 50 games.

Only once in North American sports history has an entire season been lost to players and team owners being unable to agree upon financial terms, when the National Hockey League cancelled its 20Ǥ-2005 campaign.

NBA players reacted to the news with disappointment and expressed sympathy for the stadium workers who will lose their jobs.

“Genuinely sorry to all the employees in and around the NBA arenas losing work,” Phoenix star Steve Nash wrote on his social networking Twitter page.

“Thanks for the overwhelming support today guys. You know we want to play & you understand the propaganda/misinformation from the owners.”

LeBron James tweeted, “I wanna sincerely say sorry to all the fans! It’s such a sad day for all of us, especially u guys! There’s no US w/o You.”

Not all players seemed to be paying attention Monday night as about an hour after the news broke, Fishers’ teammate Lamar Odom tweeted on his page, “Time to tune in2 @KimKardashian’s #KimKWedding part 2! It is on E!”

By Maia Szalavitz, Contributing Writer

Newswise — For people with severe chronic pain like Kelly Young and Teresa Shaffer—both of whom have become patient advocates —coping with agony is a fact of life. Young suffers from rheumatoid arthritis while Shaffer’s pain is linked primarily to another degenerative bone disease.

Chronic pain is one of the most difficult—and common—medical conditions. Estimated to affect 76 million Americans—more than diabetes, cancer and heart disease combined—it accompanies illnesses and injuries ranging from cancer to various forms of arthritis, multiple sclerosis and physical trauma.

Pain is defined as chronic when it persists after an injury or illness has otherwise healed, or when it lasts three months or longer. The experience of pain can vary dramatically, depending in part on whether it is affecting bones, muscles, nerves, joints or skin. Untreated pain can itself become a disease when the brain wrongly signals agony when there is no new injury or discernable other cause. Fibromyalgia— a disease in which pain in joints, muscles and other soft tissues is the primary symptom—is believed to be linked to incorrect signaling in the brain’s pain regions.

Finding a Doctor

The first step to deal with chronic pain is to find a physician or medical team who can accurately diagnose your condition and work with you to lessen pain.

“It’s not easy,” says Shaffer, “You have to find someone [with whom you can] build a relationship of trust and open communication.”

Dr. Russell Portenoy, chairman of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center, agrees. “You need to identify someone with a high level of knowledge and competence, good communication skills and a network of professionals with whom they work, someone who has compassion,” he says.

Dr. Paul Christo, director of the multidisciplinary pain fellowship program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, also suggests looking for someone who has completed at least a year-long certification in pain management. This information can usually be obtained on the doctor’s website or by asking about his or her qualifications.

Comprehensive Treatment

Experts agree that comprehensive care—which can involve medications, exercise, psychological therapy, massage, physical therapy, injections and complementary treatments, depending on the patient and condition—is essential.

“The reason we now call chronic pain an illness is that we recognize that it is more than just a sensation in the body,” Portenoy says, “It affects your ability to function as a human being, your relationships, your ability to be productive, to think straight.�

Unfortunately, because they have so often been dismissed as having a problem that’s “all in your head,â�� many people with chronic pain resist considering talk therapy as a part of treatment.

“A lot of people have the misconception that what I’m telling them [when recommending therapy] is that their pain is a figment of their imagination,” Christo says. �€œThat’s not what we mean. Pain has such an emotional component and psychotherapy is extremely useful in terms of helping patients reorganize and rethink how they interpret it and how it affects their lives.”

Says Shaffer, “Pain encompasses the entire person. It’s not just in your leg or back. It encompasses the entire being of who you are and what you can do and don’t do. So physically, mentally psychologically: you have to take care of all of those things.”

The Opioid Question

Although drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and even some antidepressants can help relieve pain, the most effective medications for most severe pain remain the opioids, like Oxycontin and morphine. Both doctors and patients tend to fear these drugs because of concerns about addiction and overdose.

However, of patients without a prior history of addiction, less than 3 percent of patients who take opioids regularly for pain will become addicted to the drugs, according to a Cochrane review of studies. Opioids are currently under a cloud because of a sharp rise in overdose death and addiction, mostly resulting from misuse by people who aren’t pain patients. The majority of overdoses occur in people who abuse the drugs along with alcohol and depressants like benzodiazepines (for example, Xanax).

Virtually everyone who takes opioids on a daily basis will become physically dependent, however: They will suffer withdrawal if the drugs are not slowly tapered. But that is not the same as addiction, which is defined by craving, negative consequences, reduced ability to function and compulsive drug-related behavior.

Kelly Young avoided opioids for years, relying on high doses of ibuprofen (Advil) and similar drugs. But when the pain became excruciating, her doctor suggested she try an opioid. â��I was afraid of side effects,” she says. “One night it was really bad so I took it.” At first, she felt severe dizziness. “But in 30 minutes, the pain started going away and I thought, ‘This is amazing, this is the first time in 4-5 years that I’ve been without pain,’” she says.

To reduce the dizziness, she cut the dose, starting with a liquid usually given to children so that she could find a level that allowed her to be most comfortable. Neither Young nor Shaffer, who also manages her pain with opioids, has ever developed addiction.

Two-Way Trust

Because doctors can lose their licenses or go to prison if they don’t detect addicts who fake pain, patients find themselves in a difficult position when they want to discuss opioid medications. Asking for a drug by name, for example, which might be fine with other conditions, is seen as a “red flag.���

“When you initially go to an appointment, you don’t want to go in there saying I need medication; that’s the worst thing you can do,” Shaffer says. “You want to ask for relief. Explain to the health care provider, ‘This is my life. I can’t get out of bed. I can’t do laundry. I can’t pick up my child. I need quality of life, that’s why I’m here.’”

Shaffer adds, “You have to be upfront and honest and build that relationship of trust with your doctor.”

Shaffer also notes that it is the patients’ responsibility to store opioids in a locked box safely: Many people who abuse and overdose on these medications get them from friends and relatives who do not secure them.

Acceptance and Hope

Shaffer and Young both recommend a mix of realism, mutual support and fighting spirit when it comes to facing pain. Young runs her Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior website and Shaffer moderates online discussion groups for people in pain at the American Pain Foundation site. Experts agree that support from family, friends and people facing similar problemsâ€�so long as there’s some type of social support�€”is essential.

“You have to accept what your life is going to be, but you don’t have to give up,” says Shaffer, “OK, yes I have pain but that pain doesnâ��t own me or define who I am today.”

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By Maia Szalavitz, Contributing Writer

Newswise — For people with severe chronic pain like Kelly Young and Teresa Shaffer—both of whom have become patient advocates —coping with agony is a fact of life. Young suffers from rheumatoid arthritis while Shaffer’s pain is linked primarily to another degenerative bone disease.

Chronic pain is one of the most difficult—and common—medical conditions. Estimated to affect 76 million Americans—more than diabetes, cancer and heart disease combined—it accompanies illnesses and injuries ranging from cancer to various forms of arthritis, multiple sclerosis and physical trauma.

Pain is defined as chronic when it persists after an injury or illness has otherwise healed, or when it lasts three months or longer. The experience of pain can vary dramatically, depending in part on whether it is affecting bones, muscles, nerves, joints or skin. Untreated pain can itself become a disease when the brain wrongly signals agony when there is no new injury or discernable other cause. Fibromyalgia— a disease in which pain in joints, muscles and other soft tissues is the primary symptom—is believed to be linked to incorrect signaling in the brain’s pain regions.

Finding a Doctor

The first step to deal with chronic pain is to find a physician or medical team who can accurately diagnose your condition and work with you to lessen pain.

“It’s not easy,” says Shaffer, “You have to find someone [with whom you can] build a relationship of trust and open communication.”

Dr. Russell Portenoy, chairman of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center, agrees. “You need to identify someone with a high level of knowledge and competence, good communication skills and a network of professionals with whom they work, someone who has compassion,” he says.

Dr. Paul Christo, director of the multidisciplinary pain fellowship program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, also suggests looking for someone who has completed at least a year-long certification in pain management. This information can usually be obtained on the doctor’s website or by asking about his or her qualifications.

Comprehensive Treatment

Experts agree that comprehensive care—which can involve medications, exercise, psychological therapy, massage, physical therapy, injections and complementary treatments, depending on the patient and condition—is essential.

“The reason we now call chronic pain an illness is that we recognize that it is more than just a sensation in the body,” Portenoy says, “It affects your ability to function as a human being, your relationships, your ability to be productive, to think straight.�

Unfortunately, because they have so often been dismissed as having a problem that’s “all in your head,â�� many people with chronic pain resist considering talk therapy as a part of treatment.

“A lot of people have the misconception that what I’m telling them [when recommending therapy] is that their pain is a figment of their imagination,” Christo says. �€œThat’s not what we mean. Pain has such an emotional component and psychotherapy is extremely useful in terms of helping patients reorganize and rethink how they interpret it and how it affects their lives.”

Says Shaffer, “Pain encompasses the entire person. It’s not just in your leg or back. It encompasses the entire being of who you are and what you can do and don’t do. So physically, mentally psychologically: you have to take care of all of those things.”

The Opioid Question

Although drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and even some antidepressants can help relieve pain, the most effective medications for most severe pain remain the opioids, like Oxycontin and morphine. Both doctors and patients tend to fear these drugs because of concerns about addiction and overdose.

However, of patients without a prior history of addiction, less than 3 percent of patients who take opioids regularly for pain will become addicted to the drugs, according to a Cochrane review of studies. Opioids are currently under a cloud because of a sharp rise in overdose death and addiction, mostly resulting from misuse by people who aren’t pain patients. The majority of overdoses occur in people who abuse the drugs along with alcohol and depressants like benzodiazepines (for example, Xanax).

Virtually everyone who takes opioids on a daily basis will become physically dependent, however: They will suffer withdrawal if the drugs are not slowly tapered. But that is not the same as addiction, which is defined by craving, negative consequences, reduced ability to function and compulsive drug-related behavior.

Kelly Young avoided opioids for years, relying on high doses of ibuprofen (Advil) and similar drugs. But when the pain became excruciating, her doctor suggested she try an opioid. â��I was afraid of side effects,” she says. “One night it was really bad so I took it.” At first, she felt severe dizziness. “But in 30 minutes, the pain started going away and I thought, ‘This is amazing, this is the first time in 4-5 years that I’ve been without pain,’” she says.

To reduce the dizziness, she cut the dose, starting with a liquid usually given to children so that she could find a level that allowed her to be most comfortable. Neither Young nor Shaffer, who also manages her pain with opioids, has ever developed addiction.

Two-Way Trust

Because doctors can lose their licenses or go to prison if they don’t detect addicts who fake pain, patients find themselves in a difficult position when they want to discuss opioid medications. Asking for a drug by name, for example, which might be fine with other conditions, is seen as a “red flag.���

“When you initially go to an appointment, you don’t want to go in there saying I need medication; that’s the worst thing you can do,” Shaffer says. “You want to ask for relief. Explain to the health care provider, ‘This is my life. I can’t get out of bed. I can’t do laundry. I can’t pick up my child. I need quality of life, that’s why I’m here.’”

Shaffer adds, “You have to be upfront and honest and build that relationship of trust with your doctor.”

Shaffer also notes that it is the patients’ responsibility to store opioids in a locked box safely: Many people who abuse and overdose on these medications get them from friends and relatives who do not secure them.

Acceptance and Hope

Shaffer and Young both recommend a mix of realism, mutual support and fighting spirit when it comes to facing pain. Young runs her Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior website and Shaffer moderates online discussion groups for people in pain at the American Pain Foundation site. Experts agree that support from family, friends and people facing similar problemsâ€�so long as there’s some type of social support�€”is essential.

“You have to accept what your life is going to be, but you don’t have to give up,” says Shaffer, “OK, yes I have pain but that pain doesnâ��t own me or define who I am today.”

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