Therapeutic Areas Doctors & Pharmacists

Analgesics

Many people experience pain on an almost daily basis. Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that is linked to actual or potential tissue damage. Pain therefore has a very important warning function and is thus intended to protect the body from harmful or dangerous influences.

The triggers of pain can be very different (e.g. cold, heat, injury, inflammation). Pain receptors are located almost throughout the body and receive stimuli and transmit them to the brain. The brain itself has no pain receptors and is therefore insensitive to pain.

Pain is a subjective perception of humans, which can be very different. There is not always an underlying physical cause. Chronic pain, for example, is considered a disease in its own right and has thus lost the warning function of the body.

Various drugs are available for the treatment of pain. The group of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) blocks the release of messenger substances, so the nociceptors cannot be activated. If the effect is not sufficient, the WHO step scheme provides for escalation steps with other pain therapy drugs.

AT-WEB-43-10-2021