Pain Killers

[CarolG]

If you have any sort of pain and take a pain killer it can help or get rid of the pain. Does that mean that it effects the whole of your body? Say I have an ear ache and take an ibuprofen, the medication won't know exactly where the pain is so does it 'numb' (for want of a better word) the entire body?

[RAYMAN]

The way I understand it is that wherever the pain is on the body it dulls or stops the pain signal in the central nervous system from reaching the brain.

[nicola_red]

Depends on the type of painkiller.  Anti-inflammatory painkillers (like aspirin, ibuprofen and all their 'relatives') work at the site of the pain by reducing the amount of prostaglandins that are made there. (Prostaglandins are chemicals which are released by cells at sites of injury, and cause inflammation and swelling.)  Paracetomol-based painkillers work by blocking the production of prostaglandins in the brain instead.

[RAYMAN]

thanks nicola-red didnt know that.

[CarolG]

Thanks very much!