About pain and how modern medicine is overrated

[CosmicExplorer]

Arguably the most important thing medicine, if powerful, should be able to solve or at least be able to give a big relief, is pain. Modern medicine is a joke in terms of giving people net pain relief. Opioids? Those do not give net pain relief after withdrawal or long-term use, also opium has been known since at least 3400 BC in Mesopotamia. NSAIDs are technically not painkillers*. The only thing with severe pain modern medicine can do is to smoothen out the pain/suffering curve with opioids, but again that is nothing new. Example from a rat study of how quickly tolerance develops to a painkilling effect of opioids:

After about 18 days, a high dose of tramadol is not distinguishable from the placebo, complete tolerance has been developed.

*NSAIDs are anti-hyperalgesic and anti-inflammatory drugs. Just like caffeine, Drotaverine, or many many other drugs that are not painkillers, can indirectly reduce pain in a specific scenario (hyperalgesia in case of NSAIDs). That doesn't make them painkillers. If you take an NSAID and then your wife of 20 years leaves you or hit your hand with a hammer, it hurts just the same. Opioids are painkillers and work directly by blocking pain signals between the brain and the body.

 

The argument sometimes used is "Look how much longer people live now" but actually a lot of that is infant mortality which was much higher back then. Even 1000 years ago if you reached the age of like 6, your expected lifespan, and certainly healthspan, was not that much different than today. It was not uncommon for people to get to the age of 70, even 1000 years ago.

https://news.sky.com/story/rare-genetic-mutation-allows-british-woman-75-to-feel-no-pain-12888007

In some sense, it's not surprising that natural selection cared so much about defending certain level of pain in the body and made all these negative feedback loops, as low pain phenotype is just too careless for it to survive well.

 

 

There is one thing in long development now which can be a revolution in painkillers. FAAH enzyme, if eliminated, can potentially make a drastic change to the phenotype. There is even some evidence showing it can reduce and reverse tolerance to opioids. All the FAAH inhibitors tested to this day has been either too weak inhibitors and/or cause bad side effects, in 2016 someone even died in a clinical trial which unfortunately probably will delay research by years. The discovery such strong inhibitor would be incredible, chronic pain cured, anxiety and depression destroyed

Edited March 7, 2024 by CosmicExplorer