In a surprisingly discovery that flies in the face of conventional medicine, McGill University researchers report that treating pain with anti – inflammatory medicine like ibuprofen or aspirin may promote pain in the long term.
Researchers have found that a type of white blood cell known as neutrophils seems to play a role.
To test this link, the researchers blocked neutrophils in mice and found the pain lasted 2 to 10 x longer than normal. Anti inflammatory drugs providing short term relief had the same pain prolonging effect. The findings were supported by a separate analysis of 500 000 people in the UK that showed that taking anti inflammatory drugs to treat their pain were more likely to have pain 2 to 10 years later. This research suggests it might be better not to block the inflammation but let the neutrophils ‘do their thing’.
Taking an analgesic that alleviates pain but does not block neutrophils , like acetaminophen might be better than taking an anti inflammatory drug or steroid. The data strongly suggests that neutrophils act like analgesics themselves , which is potentially useful in terms of analgesic development .
