Ok, so how does pain medication work. I don’t mean, how it understands where the pain is and then acts on it. I mean, how do doctors prescribe a certain dosage?
If I have a prescription for 500mg of ABC painkiller, what does 300mg or 650mg do? does it become more/less effective?
How does 500mg of ABC painkiller become more effective than 500mg of XZY painkiller? (Ibuprofen vs Paracetamol)
I know this is a weird question and I feel like the answer is in the question somehow. But, I’d like someone to ELI5.
In: Biology
Some drugs have similar targets but act on them in different ways, or different potencies. That’s going to complicate any general answer because drugs ABC and XYZ might be apples and oranges even if they’re both painkillers. Most broadly, varying dosage within a single drug affects to what degree it can interact with its target(s) and how long it maintains that. Higher dosage generally increases a drug’s main effects but might disproportionately increase side effects (or bring out entirely new ones) and toxicity.
As for how a given dosage is arrived at: good old fashioned trial and error. Scientists figure out in preclinical studies that a drug candidate does something useful at concentration range a-b, and various animals tolerate it at ranges x-y. Then you refine that in human trials until a handful of most effective dosages for mass production are found.
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