The Role And Impacts Of Science On Pain Management

The Role Of Science

Ibuprofen was discovered in 1961 by Stewart Adams. The problem ibuprofen was trying to solve was pain management. Pain management includes: headaches, fevers, inflammation and general aches and pains.

At the time Ibuprofen was first made available to the public in 1969, there were a number of alternative pain management solutions. This included natural and manufactured products.

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Opium was the main solution people used for pain management. Opium is a compound that was made from the seedpod of a poppy plant. The main ingredients included in opium are morphine, codeine and thebaine. These ingredients are what helps make the pain go away for a certain amount of time. Though Opium helped handle pain, there were many deaths due to overdosing on the product. For a long time, Opium was the main product used to kill pain for a few hours, until aspirin was introduced.

Aspirin was introduced to the world in 1899 and became an alternative to opium for pain management. Many people started to use aspirin then as it not only treated pain but it also reduced inflammations. Aspirin was used for more common pains like headaches and aches and opium was still used for more severe pains. Aspirin could also be used to reduce mild pain conditions like muscle aches that could occur from excessive movement, toothaches that could occur from losing teeth or a operation or a tooth infection. It was also used to reduce the pain in a condition called arthritis. If you took a high dose of aspirin you had a higher risk of getting a stroke or a heart attack as a lot of aspirin could cause blood clots, therefore causing a heart attack or stroke.

There were also many herbal remedies used before ibuprofen was introduced. Ginger was a main powerful herbal remedy as it helped reduce pain and inflammations. Capsaicin helped reduce nerve muscle and joint pains. This product was available in a gel or cream that you would put on the place where you could feel pain. The ingredients would then stop a chemical from sending your brain a message saying that you feel pain in that certain area. Herbal remedies may have been more commonly used in more rural areas as it may have been harder for them to acquire aspirin or any of the more medical medicines at the time. Some people may have preferred the use of herbal remedies more as they might have been considered more natural than medicine or less addictive and safer or it could have just been a family tradition to use herbal remedies when you need pain relief.

The substance Ibuprofen was produced to help pain management such as fevers, inflammations and headaches and has succeeded in doing so. Within two hours of taking a dose of ibuprofen you should start to feel pain relief. Ibuprofen has an effect that protects you from blood clots. When your body is injured or there is pain occurring, your body usually releases a substance which allows yo to feel the pain in that area. The way that Ibuprofen works is that it blocks the production of the substances that occur when your body is in pain so therefore giving you pain relief. The substance that the body releases when your body is in pain is called prostaglandins. Prostaglandins is a substance that causes you to feel pain and they also cause your body to start swelling or become inflamed. Although Ibuprofen can cause pain relief within the hour of taking it, swelling and inflammations may take longer to reduce or cure.

Environmental Impact of Science on Pain Management

Advantages

From an environmental point of view an advantage on using plants in pain relief ingredients is that they are a natural ingredient and natural ingredients cause less harm to your internal organs than chemical ingredients.

Using plants in pain relief products helps people to not become addicted to them and use that addiction to harm themselves so therefore natural recourses are a safer and healthier option

Using plants in pain relief products can also reduce the risk of unhealthier side effects that may occur with more chemical medicines.

Another advantage is that herbs and plants tend to have a more effective result in terms of chronic pain than chemical medicines do.

Disadvantages A disadvantage for the environment on using plants in pain relief products is that they may over use the plants to provide greater resources for peoples benefits, causing those specific plants to become extinct

Another disadvantage that might occur while using plants in medicine is the lack of knowledge that you would have on someone to know whether they will have an allergic reaction to a specific plant

Economic Impact of Science on Pain Management

Advantages

It causes more people to spend more money on buying this medical product as they do not want to feel pain.

The use of science has helped produce a medical product which provides pain relief.

Scientists are currently trying to discover a safer non addictive medicine that can help give you pain relief after you have hurt or injured yourself.

As science is used to help pain relief it can lead to more people going back to work quickly which can lead to more products being sold which ultimately leads to more money for the government and country.

Having good pain relief products allows people to not have to go to the doctor as often and allow kids to go back to school so that they can learn and become more knowledgeable which can ultimately help our future society.

Disadvantages An economic disadvantage with pain relief products is the cost of the production of the actual product. The production cost could be an extremely high amount of money as the required equipment and resources could cost a lot to make the product.

Sometimes the pain relief product may not be as successful in the market place and therefore their sales could be too low to create a profit on how much the government spent on creating the actual product.

Have a faulty product may cause a severe budget loss and reduce the money available in future creations of pain relief products and medicine in general.

Conclusion

In conclusion the solution on pain management towards headaches, fevers, inflammation and general aches and pains has seemed effective as it has offered many alternatives which can help people with pain relief and that are easily accessible to most of the population. The solution to using herbal medicines instead of chemically produced medical products is also very affective as many people cannot use or take normal pain relief products so herbal products are useful to those specific people. The only downside is that it may cost a lot of money to create the required equipment needed to create these specific pain relief products. Though if the product cost a lot of money to make, but it makes a big profit it won’t matter as much as the company would be acquiring profit from the product.