eli5: If all pain medication does the same thing (trick the body into thinking everything is okay and it’s not in pain), then why does some pain require stronger medication like opioids?

Question

eli5: If all pain medication does the same thing (trick the body into thinking everything is okay and it’s not in pain), then why does some pain require stronger medication like opioids?

In: Other

Answer 1

Different pain killers work differently in the brain. They affect different parts of the brain in different ways but all achieve pain relief.

The strongest pain meds work on all pain but knock you out. The over the counter meds are safe for the home because they don’t cause addiction and don’t require a doctor to properly calculate the right dosage.

I don’t know the mechanisms each uses, but it’s going to be something like the weak ones slow pain neurons, while the strong ones turn them off.