How do pain medications work? How do they manage to alleviate even the worst of pain?
In: Biology
They don’t necessarily. They basically make you ignore the pain. This is why “Pain” medications are usually coupled with things like Ibuprofen. The Ibuprofen does the actual pain-killing while the opiate makes you just not care about it or be as aware of the pain. You can actually increase the amount something hurts by up to 40% (study I read a long time ago so take with a grain of salt) just by focusing on it, your brain will send extra pain signals as you are extremely aware of the issue. The opiate basically knocks that awareness down quite a few levels.
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