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Morphine: Preventative Pain Control Essay

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Morphine: Preventative Pain Control

I. Introduction

Narcotic analgesics, especially morphine are underused for pain control with in the medical field. This underuse is because medical professionals, including doctors, fear patient addiction, side effects and possible lose of their licenses. These fears deny adequate healing and a better quality of life to those who would benefit from a more effective use of these drugs, as done in hospice care.

II. PAIN:

Pain not only involves the physical reaction to damaged tissue, but also involves an emotional and cognitive response by the person experiencing the pain (Backer, 1994). A person's prior experience will influence how pain is managed. Pain is a signal that something is not …show more content…

Pain is not inevitable and can be treated. To live a life hampered by pain when treatment is available, is to cheat one out of the full quality of life that is possible.

Pain effects the body through the nerves. The phenomena of pain is conveyed from a peripheral part of the person, through afferent nerves to a part of the brain, similar to sight, touch, and hearing. These signals are then interpreted by the brain as pain (Murphy, 1981). The nerve cells used to relay pain messages to the brain are specific nerve cells called nociceptors. These nerves do not send messages until "the stimulus reaches noxious levels," (McClesky, 1992).

Pain can be acute or chronic. Acute pain is intense, short in duration and generally a reaction to trauma. Chronic pain does not go away, and can range from a dull ache to excruciating agony. Terminal and non-terminal illnesses can both be causes of chronic pain. Tissue damage is not always found in chronic pain, but those who suffer from it are rendered "nonfunctional by incapacitating pain," (Murphy, 1981).

Chronic Pain

Chronic pain has four mechanisms. Nociception is a neural signal of threatened or damaged tissue, and is the classical pain pathway. Central pain states are thought to be caused by abnormal activity in neurons in the afferent pathway. The mechanism for this is not completely understood, and a person may perceive pain where there is no tissue damage. Behavioral pain is communicated by a

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