How do pain killers know where the pain is??
Got a headache or any other muscle pain? An appointment with the doctor would generally prescribe some sort of pain killers for quick relief. Ever wondered though how would the pain killer tablets know where the pain is? Like if someone has a pain in the neck would the tablet have a map placed inside to go the neck area to relieve the pain?
Or is it something else? Let's find out the secret!!
Well, before that we need to understand why do we feel pain. Whenever our body is injured or when we hurt say when we prick our finger or a hand touches something hot, there are signals sent to make us aware that something is not normal. And normally that is also accompanied by an action of ours say how we take our hand away if we touch something hot.
Whenever such incidents happen, there are certain chemicals/hormones released around the affected part in our body. One of the hormones is called PROSTAGLANDINS. These hormones when released meet the pain receptors present in the body called as noiceceptors which is very sensitive to prostaglandins. So these pain killers do the job of dampening or weakening the effect of prostaglandins. So basically the damage is still there, however the brain is not that active to the effect hence we do not feel the pain. Basically these drugs reduce the inflammation/swelling hence these are also called as anti-inflammatory drugs ( non steriodal ) NSAIDs
Well, we still haven't answered the question, have we!! How do the pain killers know where the pain is? Do we tell the pill in it's ears where the pain is, like "Hey, go to the neck", "Go up in the head"..
Jokes apart, the fun fact is it doesn't know! Seriously it does not, whenever we take a pill our digestive system will do the work of breaking down the medicine and absorbing the chemicals into our blood stream. So all the chemicals present in the blood when they go through the liver, there is said to be a further breakdown of the medicine components which are then released into the blood stream.
So these components when going with the blood will start with blocking the production of the chemicals ultimately resulting in preventing any production of prostaglandins. This is one of the reasons why sometimes when one takes medicine for headache there is a relief in the muscle pain as well.
That does explain the reason, doesn't it? The pain killers know by just going through every nook and corner of the body asking if you have pain and does it's work accordingly. Obviously there are some differences that might come with how each medicine tablet works however the idea behind is kind of similar.
One thing to note is, there are certain side effects that we need to consider if there is an over abuse of these pain killer meds.
Well, that's some stuff for the curious mind... Until next time, keep the curiosity bug up and running!!
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