Pain and Painkillers – Why They Shouldn’t Be Mixed
You know that feeling when you get in your car, start it up, and glance down at the dash only to see the “Check Engine” light on? What does it mean to you?
Pain is your body’s “Check Engine” light. A better warning title for us would be “Check for Dysfunction”. This pain is your body’s built in alarm system. You have an electrical pathway of nerves throughout your entire body (so dense that not one cell in your body is farther than 3 nanometers away from a nerve!) In current research it is learned that our pain receptors -the things in our body that acknowledge pain- make up only 10% of all of those nerves. What this means is that the back pain you are feeling right now, or the aches you may feel after a slip is probably worse than you think.
There are many reasons why I don’t feel like pain killers are the answer to our daily headaches, backaches, or what have you. (Now, before you start thinking I’m going to be disappointed in you for taking Ibuprofen, Advil or Tylenol just give me a minute). I grew up as most of you may have where the answer for a headache was a few Ibuprofen. Back pain? Ibuprofen. Sprained ankle, not walking well? Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate … oh, and Ibuprofen. The cause of pain is only being masked by these pain killers, similar to how you mask a wound with a bandaid. Surely we don’t expect a cut to be healed after 6 hours under a bandaid; so, then why do we think that pain killers would be the cure to a headache?
Pain and painkillers should not be mixed. Cut off your arm – yes, PLEASE, take that painkiller. Sprain your ankle? Don’t go straight to the medicine cabinet. First think about this:
- Injury leads to an inflammatory response in your body
- Your body’s nervous system perceives the pain and innate intelligence sends inflammatory agents to the site of injury
- Inflammatory agents — Histamines, Leukotrienes, Bradykinin, Substance P — flood the site of injury
Once the inflammatory agents are at the site of injury, they go to work. Histamines cause inflammation, Leukotrienes convey the need for greater immune response, Bradykinin causes your vessels to dilate allowing more blood that caries healing elements to travel to the injured area, and then there’s Substance P.
Substance P has been known to stimulate cell growth and promote wound healing in humans. This one substance causes increased pain sensation to the affected area. Now why would our bodies want to increase our pain to the already injured area? To prevent further injury. All of these agents come to the site for two main reasons: 1. To amplify and send a signal to the brain of “Don’t mess with me, I’m trying to figure out what you just did here” and 2. Healing.
By taking a pain killer you stop these agents that promote inflammation, the first necessary step in healing.
Painkillers are very good at reducing pain and inflammation, but they also dramatically reduce the productiveness of the healing process. And not only that, but if you feel no pain, you feel you are free to move maybe more than you should or as if you were never injured at all. I’ll say it again, pain and painkillers shouldn’t be mixed. But if pain and painkillers shouldn’t be mixed, what can we do to promote better and faster healing?
Being as our entire body is regulated by our brain via that dense network of nerves, it is essential to do something to increase the efficiency of those nerves traveling to the area of injury or dysfunction. And that my friends is what I do as a chiropractor.
My hope is that you understand the power that your body has to heal itself, without the need for painkillers, and that you will see the benefit of having an alert, drug free, and effective nervous system.
Extra Education on Pain
- Nociceptor: A receptor overly sensitive to harmful stimuli or to any stimulus that would become harmful if prolonged. This receptor generates signals to communicate with the brain that a potentially harmful stimulus has occurred.
- Somatic pain (muscular pain) tends to be localized, constant pain that is described as sharp, aching, throbbing, or gnawing.
- Visceral pain (organ pain) tends to be vague in distribution, episodic in nature and is usually described as deep, aching, squeezing and colicky in nature.
- Psychology and Pain – In my research, I found an interesting perspective from a doctor. He asked “Why do two people, injured in exactly the same manner, have dramatically different responses in terms of pain and suffering?” The answer to that is possibly this: Emotions. I quote, “Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. … [S]everal lines of evidence indicate that the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex are critical in this regard.” Patients with frontal lobe injuries are able to describe the intensity of pain, but do not appear to suffer in proportion to the degree of pain as patients without frontal lobe injuries. “Both behavioral and autonomic responses to pain are blunted.”
If you have any questions, feel free to comment below, or find us on Facebook and start a discussion there.
Looking to find the source of your pain? Ready to start living without pain and pain killers? Please schedule a consultation or visit us for an adjustment. Our office is just west of Eagle road on the border between Meridian & Boise.