Many people believe that when they suffer from a headache all they have to do is take painkilling medicines and all will be well. Whether we're suffering from migraine headaches, tension headaches, or other kinds of pain, we've been told since we were young children to take pain pills to lessen the pain. On the other hand, is that the best tactic? Taking potentially dangerous or addictive painkillers?
The St. Louis University School of Medicine has done research that demonstrates that using painkillers appears "to be the primary factor in promoting the development of chronic pain." To put it a different way, the pain killing medications may be the origin of the pain instead of the cure for headache.
An associate professor of psychiatry at this school of medicine, Paul Duckro, states "The best thing a person with chronic headaches can do is get off the painkillers." He goes on to say that two-thirds of chronic headache sufferers were helped when they stopped taking their headache medicine.
The painkillers we're referring to are not little known or never-heard-of drugs, but the most accepted types you notice at the drug store. These include, but are not limited to ibuprofen (the pain-relieving element in Advil, Motrin IB, and Nuprin), acetaminophen (the painkilling ingredient in Tylenol), aspirin, and also stronger narcotic analgesics.
According to Duckro there is evidently a reliable point in a chronic sufferer's ingestion of painkillers when the headache becomes drug-caused. A chemical that is supposed to lessen pain becomes a main factor in manufacturing it. It's possible that these familiar drugs are hurting your chances of recovery from your long-time headaches.
As bad as it can be to feel an increase in pain as a result of taking pain killers, this is not the only fear. These very medicines may be responsible for other more serious health problems. There are about 125,000 cases of end-stage renal disease in the U.S. each year, and according to Dr. William Bennett, head of nephrology at Oregon Health Sciences University, pain killers may be responsible for as many as 20% of these cases.
And if that's not enough, ingesting these medications can also result in other disorders or symptoms. These include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, stomach pain, lightheadedness, liver damage, kidney damage, internal hemorrhaging and countless other symptoms; even death.
All you have to do is read the label on an analgesic container to discover the many negative consequences possible from their ingestion. Or watch a TV commercial about any particular medicine. In TV commercials the possible negative side effects can take much longer to list than the drugs possible benefits.
If we take medication for our chronic migraine headaches, there is no guarantee that it will stop the pain. There is also no guarantee that the medication won't cause liver or kidney damage, bleeding in the stomach, nausea, vomiting, and a whole host of other conditions. Is it worth the risk? That's something you will have to decide for yourself.
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