Asking this as I have a horrible throat infection making it incredibly painful to swallow, and therefore difficult to eat and drink. I have to stay on top of my painkillers every four hours or the pain starts to come back, I’d just love to know how this actually works.
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It depends on the painkiller.
Some of them stop the processes that send pain-inducing chemicals, like aspirin. In this case, yes, the pain is actually “gone” because those pain signals stop sending.
In stronger things like opioids, the pain receptors are blocked. The pain is still “there” but you can’t even receive those pain signals.
So for example, you can’t take something like aspirin and feel no pain if you suddenly cut your hand, because aspirin doesn’t stop that type of of pain process. While someone high on opioids may not even notice they cut their hand.
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