An opioid is a kind of drug usually prescribed by the doctors to treat severe body pain. In most cases, people who suffer from chronic headaches and backaches are suggested with the Opioid drug. Besides, patients who are recovering from the surgery or suffering from a painful life-threatening disease like cancer are often suggested with Opioid drugs. However, the advancement of technology in the medical industry has forced doctors to prescribe Opioid Alternatives to patients who suffer from chronic body pain like headaches or backaches.
Why Opioid Alternatives?
As per the recent study, consuming the pain killer drug Opioid might lead to severe side effects on considering that fact, many doctors now prefer to suggest alternative medicines for treating pain. The study reports suggest that the side effect caused by the Opioid drug can be life-threatening if it not treated timely.
Side Effects of Opioid Drug
- Sleepiness
- Constipation
- Nausea
- Shallow Breathing
- Slowed Heart rate
- Loss of Consciousness
If you are facing any of the above-listed issues on consuming the Opioid drug for a pro-long time means, then it’s the alarm bell for your health condition pointing that it’s the right time to shift to Opioid alternatives for pain management.
List of Top 10 Opioid Alternatives Works Fine On Pain Management
Here we have listed all those top alternatives that can be used instead of Opioid drugs for managing your chronic body pain. All the upcoming alternatives verified from the trusted sources and work fine on pain management.
Physical therapy
Physical therapy can be a perfect alternative for opioids when it comes to pain management. However, one should be very cautious in selecting the right physician for undergoing physical therapy. Doing the right physical therapy under the supervision of professional therapists will improve the ability of the human body function owing to that it will decrease the pain. In most cases, physical therapists prefer a deep-muscle massage, ultrasound therapy along with Whirlpools for treating body pain.
Acupuncture
Well, Acupuncture treatment might be familiar with many. It involves the process of inserting needles inside the skin on the infected parts of the body that acts as an interceptor of pain signals. In fact, people all over the world now start preferring acupuncture for treating much illness since there’s no side effect on acupuncture treatment. However, you need to make sure that you are engaging with a well-trained acupuncture specialist to avail of better treatment.
Surgery
Though surgery is not highly recommended it no other treatment shows effective response on controlling chronic pain then surgery is the only option to fix the abnormalities of the body.
Injections or nerve blocks
Injecting with local anesthetics or any other pain-killing medications will act as a short-circuit on your body pain and cause you relief from it. In most cases, people who suffer from a muscle spasm or nerve pain can be treated like this for getting rid of their body pain.
Radio waves
Passing radio waves on the pain nerves are almost similar to the process of injecting pain killers directly to the pain nerves. In this process too, physicians insert needles over the nerves which transmit the pain signal to the human brain and pass the radio waves on it. The radio wave short-circuits the signals and blocks the signal transmission. People who undergo radio wave therapy can experience pain relief for up to 1 year.
Nerve blocks
It is a process in which medical expert blocks the nerve which transmits the pain signals in the body. By doing so, people will not experience body pain and those who are suffering from chronic pain will experience pain relief. The process carried with the aid of X-ray imaging and it requires a series of injections and repeated treatment.
Electrical signals
This procedure involves sending low-voltage electrical signals directly over the body parts where pain generating. Based on the study, sending such low-voltage electricity will create short-circuit on pain signals from transmitting. Owing to that, people might experience short-term pain relief. In most cases, people who suffer from muscle pain will undergo this Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.
Spinal cord stimulation
When all the pain relief methods fail, then pain management specialist will prefer for spinal cord stimulation (SCS). It is a process that involves placing a small device over the patient’s spinal cord which transmits signals during the painful time; this can be very effective for people who are suffering from severe back pain and leg nerve damage. For diabetes patients, this SCS could be a very effective treatment for relieving their leg pain.
Pain pumps
Pain pumps are the specialist pumps which implanted on the spinal cord of the patient. Whenever they experiencing pain, by pressing the button, the pain relief medicines will directly be supplied to the spinal cord causing relief from pain. This process will eliminate the side effects risk of the pain killers taken via mouth. In most cases, cancer patients are highly suggested with such a pain pump method of getting rid of the pain.
Future solutions
Well, it is the most advanced technique used in the medical industry where the stem cells of the patient’s bone marrow harvested and injected into the painful area artificially, though the process is pretty painful the injected stem cells plays a vital role on regenerating the healthy tissue on the damaged parts. This process will cure the damages which cause body pain.
Conclusion:
The afore-mentioned listed methods are the top existing methods for relieving pain from the human body. However, there still research practices that are going on to find more effective Opioid Alternatives for treating body pain. The technology advancement in the medical industry has promised on finding an innovative approach to eliminate body pain in the most effective manner in the near future.