Chronic Pain and You
Step one of the analgesic ladder is the non-narcotic pain relievers. These are the products you are familiar with for mild pain such as aspirin, Motrin and Tylenol. These pain relievers may be over-the-counter or on prescription. Adjuvants are other medications used with pain relievers to improve your pain control by relieving other symptoms like anxiety, nausea, depression, and sleeplessness. Throughout this presentation I use the term narcotic and opioid interchangeably. The narcotic pain relievers that you are most familiar with like codeine, morphine, and oxycodone were originally derived from opium, therefore, opioid is another term for these pain relievers. The term narcotic has become a general term for all of the strong pain relievers. If pain persists we move to step 2.