Pain Meds: Should They Be the Last Resort?

Dr. Rachel Sharp, D.C.
Jul 29, 2014
3 min read

What is pain?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary; pain is the physical feeling caused by disease, injury, or something that hurts the body.

When pain strikes, it’s tempting to reach for medication right away. But pain isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s an important message from your body. By silencing pain without addressing its cause, we risk ignoring the very signals that help protect and heal us.

Why Is Pain Important?

Pain is your body’s warning system. It tells you that something isn’t working properly — whether that’s a joint out of alignment, a strained muscle, or an inflamed nerve. If we didn’t feel pain, we wouldn’t know when to stop harmful movements, rest an injury, or seek care.

In this sense, pain is protective. It alerts us early, before the problem becomes more severe. Masking pain with medication can delay proper treatment, allowing the underlying issue to worsen.

What Should We Do About Our Pain?

Step 1: Listen to it! – For example, if lifting something heavy is painful, stop lifting it.

Step 2: Localize/Characterize the pain. Is this something severe? Is this an emergency? – If this is not an emergency situation, continue to Step 3.

Step 3: RICE – Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate. – Rest is self-explanatory (see Step 1). Ice should not be placed directly on the skin. To avoid tissue damage (pain) from ice, do not use it longer than 20 minutes at a time. Remove it and allow the skin to return to its normal temperature before reapplying. Compressing the area of pain will activate mechanoreceptors, which will distract the brain from feeling the pain. Elevation is for managing blood flow and inflammation.

Step 4: If the pain continues, make an appointment with your doctor. – Chiropractors for muscle, joint, and nerve pain; Osteopathic and Medical doctors for lacerations, suspected fractures, and other more severe injuries.

Step 5: If all else fails; you may want to consider pain medications or anti-inflammatory medications.

Why should pain medications be our last resort?

Pain is a symptom. Pain medications mask the symptom by blocking the pain signal from reaching the spinal cord and brain. The pain is still there, you just can’t feel it.
Tissue is still being damaged, more so now that you can’t feel it and listen to it.
This leads your body to try to stabilize the area of pain, to remove the stimulus by creating scar tissue, calcifying ligaments and tendons, splinting joints with inflammation and muscle to spasms, and eventually leading to degeneration.
Some medications cause tissue damage in other areas of the body, not originally the site of pain or tissue damage.
Ibuprofen and naproxen sodium commonly cause digestive issues like ulcerations [1].
Acetaminophen is actually a toxic substance to both the brain and liver; it causes damage in these areas after it depletes the body of glutathione, the most powerful antioxidant in the body.
Steroid injections cause localized osteoporosis with long term use which predisposes you to fractures.
Need I say more?

A Balanced Perspective

There are times when pain medications are appropriate: after acute injury, when pain prevents sleep or daily function, or as a short-term bridge while the root cause is being addressed. The goal is to use them as a tool, not the foundation, of care.

The Takeaway

Pain is not the enemy — it’s a messenger. By listening to it and taking steps to address the root cause, you can heal more effectively and protect your long-term health. Pain medications may have their place, but they should be the last resort, not the first response.

*It is important to read the side-effects on the medication labels or ask your pharmacist how these pain medications can affect you. Also, drugs.com is a good resource to use.

*This post is not recommending or prescribing medications in any way and is meant for educational purposes only.

References

Bhala N, Emberson J, Merhi A, et al. Vascular and upper gastrointestinal effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs: meta-analyses of individual participant data from randomised trials. Lancet. 2013;382(9894):769–779. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60900-9
Vowles KE, McEntee ML, Julnes PS, Frohe T, Ney JP, van der Goes DN. Rates of opioid misuse, abuse, and addiction in chronic pain: a systematic review and data synthesis. Pain. 2015;156(4):569–576. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.j.pain.0000460357.01998.f1