Researchers from the University of Colorado found that prescription opioid painkillers can actually worsen chronic pain. They also found that these drugs may prolong the very pain they are supposed to help lessen. This may partially explain why the use of prescription painkillers has quadrupled in the last 20 years.
The reason that painkillers can worsen pain is that they seem to trigger pain signals from glial cells—the immune cells located in the brain and spinal cord. These cells are responsible for protecting the central nervous system from bacteria and viruses, but when the body is experiencing pain, glial cells become irritated when exposed to painkillers. This results in the pain becoming intensified and prolonged.
Comments: Besides being highly addictive, prescription painkillers are usually inadequate in addressing chronic pain, but there very effective in creating repeat customers for the drug makers. As an alternative to oral (systemic) narcotic painkillers, we use topical (localized) non-narcotic pain killers (click here). For severe cases, we add high-dose oral and intravenous vitamin C. At high doses, vitamin C has been shown to reduce the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. This in turn reduces pain.
