Acute pain has a sudden onset, usually due to trauma by accident or injury, or a disease. The abruptness often does not allow the patient to adapt properly. The patient ends up suffering a great deal and needs immediate attention. Pain management clinics offer a wide variety of options for people in acute pain. A set of professionals are ready to cater to the patient’s needs. When a patient arrives, the main priority is to remove the source of offense. Source of offense can be anything, an infection, a fracture, a fever, et cetera. If the pain is due to an infection, antibiotics are given. If pain is because of a fracture, the bones are immobilized and protected with a plaster. If the patient has a fever, NSAIDS are given. If the cause of pain is unknown, then priority is given to reducing just the pain.
The first-line treatment for people suffering from acute pain is the administration of non-opioid pain killers. Painkillers are also known as analgesics. These can be NSAIDS (for example, aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, et cetera), acetaminophen, ketamine and such. Analgesics are given either orally, topically, through the intramuscular or intravenous route, depending upon the severity of the pain. Intravenous tends to be the fastest route and is given to the patients in serious condition. The topical route is by far the slowest route but is a great method for managing those patients who experience mild to moderate pain like local muscle pain or sprains. Patients are also given local anesthetics and peripheral nerve blocks so that they do not feel pain. Instances, where burn patients experienced immense pain, have also been recorded. These patients are kept under general anesthesia so that they may heal and undergo treatment whilst being unconscious and do not experience that unbearable pain.
If these non-opioid drugs do not show promising results, opioid drugs are considered. Opioid drugs are usually avoided as they act just like the body’s natural system of endorphins and thus, tamper with the body’s natural reward system. Patients can become hooked on opioid drugs. With time, opioids start to have a lesser effect on the body. This means that in order to have an effect, similar to that produced by the original dose, increasing doses of opioids have to be taken each time. Even if the acute pain has ended, the body will develop a dependency on these drugs, eventually resulting in full-blown addiction. This addiction can cause various physical and psychological problems.
Recently, doctors have started prescribing patients opioid and non-opioid drugs simultaneously. This combination of opioid and non-opioid drugs not only increases the potency of analgesics but also reduces the risk of developing dependence and tolerance. Furthermore, these patients also experience lesser side effects of these analgesics.
In addition, the clinic also offers alternative medical treatments. Patients who prefer this treatment may be offered herbal tonics and teas like turmeric, black pepper or chamomile which helps relieve pain symptoms efficiently.