What's wrong with painkillers?
What’s wrong with popping pain killers, after all they can’t be that bad, you can buy them pretty much anywhere; the supermarket, the newsagent, your local shop, the petrol station.
There’s no denying that painkillers are at times invaluable, like those times you had raging toothache, crippling headache, period pains or agonising back pain. Taking some pain killers helped you stay comfortable until you got to see the dentist, the doctor or the osteopath.
But what if you were still experiencing pain after you’d seen a health professional, or they simply gave you a prescription for more pain killers? Or worse you never got around to going to the dentist or doctor because you figured it was easier or cheaper to take a few ibuprofen or if it was really bad down a couple of co-codamol to help you sleep?
What then?
What are the long term implications of regularly taking pain killers?
Ironically they can cause more pain - they can damage your heart, lungs, liver, spleen, they can affect fertility, cause lower back pain, headaches, increased blood pressure, skin irritation, mood swings, and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. More importantly when used over long periods of time they are ineffective and this is why many people end up taking them day in day out.
The damage that pain killers can cause was brought home to me 4 years ago when I was having a particularly bad migraine attack and took some codeine to knock me out. An hour later there were 2 paramedics in my house sticking heart monitors on me checking to see if I was having a heart attack. Luckily I wasn’t, but it turns out that I’d had an adverse reaction to codeine which had affected my liver and sent me into excruciating spasms of pain.
Since then I’ve sought drug free alternatives to deal with pain. I’ve brought these into my practice and share them with my clients so that they can manage their migraines and headaches without relying on pain killers.
If you find yourself reaching for the paracetamol on a regular basis, whether it’s because of headaches or some other pain, then I’d love to chat with you about healthier alternatives so simply give me a call or drop me a line.
Jane McDowell, Bristol’s Favourite Drug Free Migraine & Headache Solution
07779 023117
