It is a drug intended to calm ailments found in certain parts of the body, such as the head or muscles. They derive from opium, which is a famous drug in the sixteenth century that, in turn, came from a plant called “poppy” and was used as a painkiller, then morphine was extracted from it; due to its high rate of addictiveness, heroin was created, but it was twice as powerful. German scientists Max Bockemühl and Gustav Ehrhart developed methadone in pursuit of a drugto ease pain during surgery and make it less addictive than heroin and morphine. In 1984, the United States approved Vicodin, in 1995 OxyContin and in 1999 Percocet.
The classification of analgesics is based on the effects that it supposes, that is, with how much intensity they operate. It begins with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, whose function is to inhibit certain enzymes that are the motives for pain to occur; one of its shortcomings is that if the patient exceeds the recommended dose, bleeding may occur. It is followed by minor opioids, which mimic the power of opioids, but with less intensity. Then there are the major opiates, which in turn are divided into natural (opiate) and artificial (opioids), are considered the most powerful painkillers known and depress the nervous system in the first doses.
In addition, there is another type of analgesic called adjuvant drugs, which are not considered analgesics when administered alone, but which retain a certain type of potency that increases the force of action of other sedatives. The most commonly used are corticosteroids, antidepressants and anticonvulsants. It should be noted that, by entering the use of placebo, the way in which the brain perceives pain can be changed despite not being a painkiller as such.
The World Health Organization (WHO), prepared in 1986 a report for the Geneva magazine, Anesthesia & Analgesia, which talked about the "Relief of pain in cancer", in which the subject was portrayed around a staircase, and in each step the intensity of the pain and its treatment were specified. Mild pain is found in the first step, and the treatment was non-opioids and adjuvants; then moderate pain and weak opioids, non- opioids, and adjuvants as treatment, and lastly severe pain, which is treated with strong opioids, non-opioids, and adjuvants.
However, some have tried to break with the tradition of the staircase model, transforming it into an elevator, which has 4 buttons, where pain levels and their respective medication are recorded.
