Analgesics, which are medicines used to decrease pain, can be dangerous for the patient when they are used for more than 3 months or an exaggerated amount of the medication is ingested, which can lead to dependence, for example.
However, some analgesics have both antipyretic and anti-inflammatory drugs, such as Paracetamol and Aspirin, helping to decrease pain, reduce fever, and decrease inflammation.
Painkillers can be easily bought without prescription in a pharmacy, with a higher risk of self-medication, which may lead to problems such as allergic reactions or drug poisoning. Learn more about the dangers of self-medication in: Dangers of self-medication.
Therefore, all analgesics, even non-opioid analgesics, which are the most common and used to relieve mild or moderate pain, such as Paracetamol or Diclofenac for example, should be used under the guidance of a health professional such as a doctor, nurse or pharmacist, to prevent problems due to misuse.
Main dangers of analgesics
Some of the major dangers of using analgesics for more than 3 months include:
- Masking the real symptoms of a disease : using painkillers often makes it difficult to diagnose and postpones the correct treatment of a disease.
- Create addiction: the more often an analgesic is used if you want to take it, missing it if you do not take it and symptoms such as tremors and sweating, for example, and not treating the disease;
- Causing headaches: The patient may experience intense daily headaches due to overuse.
In addition, in more severe cases, the use of opioid analgesics, which serve to alleviate severe pain and has in its composition opium, such as morphine, may cause respiratory distress and may lead to the death of the individual.
Dangers of analgesics for the stomach
When analgesic drugs are used daily for more than a week, side effects may occur, especially at the level of the stomach, such as loss of appetite, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, diarrhea and, in more severe cases, ulcer development in the stomach.
As many analgesics are also anti-inflammatory it is crucial to eat some food before taking the remedy to protect the stomach.
Useful links:
- Tylenol sinus
- Paracetamol (Naldecon)
- Paracetamol tea
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