Pharmacology for Technicians: Chronic Pain Medications

Pain medications are vast and many. Surprisingly and yet obviously, the causes of pain are also vast and many. ‘Chronic’ pain refers to pain lasting longer than six months or occurs with a chronic health condition. Examples of chronic pain scenarios include neuropathic, fibromyalgia, rheumatic disease and Lupus, back and joint, migraines, and inflammation. All of these will be discussed in this session. Depending on the cause of pain, it will be managed differently. Some pain medications have inherently more risk than others and understanding these risks is essential to providing the best patient care possible. The purpose of this session is to highlight causes of chronic pain and its differences from acute [short-term] pain, discuss how pain medications augment the sensations of pain both physically and mechanistically, and to address risks associated with all these medications.