Our goal is to treat the pain at its origin and not to cover up symptoms by prescribing pills. But sometimes pills can be a good solution for pain relief. Migraine patients for example profit from Triptan therapy. Another example are those migraine patients who do not respond well to Triptan therapy, but have experienced migraine-free times after taking a CGRP antagonist. Therefore, it is important to treat each pain individually.

Pain Medication – a critical look

Of course, there are not only positive effects when taking pain medication. Side effects and interactions can not only be uncomfortable, but potentially harmful.

Less is more is the principle when taking medication. It is called polypharmacy when patients are taking several medications (four or more) at the same time and over a longer period of time. Every 3-5th patient over the age of 70 is taking four or more pills simultaneously. The interactions between the different medications are increasing exponentially with the amount of pills taken.

Conclusion

With each treatment the wanted effects need to be weighted against the unwanted side effects. Obviously if unwanted side effects prevail, one should refrain from taken the medication.

If a complete healing of the pain origin cannot be achieved in case of chronic pain, interventional pain treatments can provide an elegant way to interrupt the pain at its origin. Unwanted side effects are often fewer when applying interventional pain procedures and can make medication superfluous. Therefore, taking pills is often not the best choice in chronic pain patients.