Analgesics, which are medicines used to reduce pain, can be dangerous for the patient when their use is longer than 3 months or an exaggerated amount of the drug is ingested, which can lead to dependence, for example.
However, some pain relievers have both antipyretic and anti-inflammatory drugs, such as Paracetamol and Aspirin, helping to decrease pain, lower fever and reduce inflammation.
Painkillers can be easily purchased without a prescription at a pharmacy, with a greater risk of self-medication, running the risk of developing problems, such as an allergic reaction or drug intoxication. Learn more about the dangers of self-medication at: 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, must 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 painkillers
Some of the main dangers of using painkillers for more than 3 months include:
- Masking the real symptoms of a disease: using painkillers often makes diagnosis difficult and postpones the correct treatment of a disease. Creating dependency: the more often a painkiller is used, the more you want to take it, missing it if you don't take it and symptoms such as tremors and sweating, for example, and not treating the disease; Provoking headaches: the patient may experience severe headaches daily due to overuse.
In addition, in more severe cases, the use of opioid analgesics, which are used to relieve severe pain and have opium composition, such as morphine, may cause breathing difficulties, which may lead to the individual's death.
Dangers of painkillers for the stomach
When painkillers are used daily for more than a week, side effects may arise mainly at the stomach level, such as loss of appetite, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, diarrhea and, in more severe cases, development of ulcers in the stomach. stomach.
As many painkillers are also anti-inflammatory, it is essential to eat some food before taking the medicine to protect the stomach.
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