There is a saying among non-allopathic health care folks that goes, “You can’t heal what you can’t feel.” It’s the argument for not using analgesics unnecessarily: If you don’t really need it, don’t take a pain killer. It impairs your body’s ability to feel itself (by definition, right?) and that will impair your body’s ability to heal itself.
Is this true? Is there any evidence that taking a ibuprofin prolongs the whatever-it-is that’s causing your headache? That taking dextromathorphan makes your cough last longer? I understand that taking drugs can allow you to continue pushing your body, and that that could prolong a sickness. I understand that your liver has to deal with these chemicals, and that’s probably not good for it. But if all other things were equal–the same amount of rest and your liver is just fine, for example–would you get better faster if abstain from drugs than if you take them?
Nathen's Miraculous Escape 
October 23, 2009 at 1:27 am
Or, on the other hand, can physical pain be a kind of stressor that sets off a chain reaction of the kind of stress chemicals that are hard on your body? Can painkillers prevent that damage?
I think my doctor hinted at this argument once, while prescribing me drugs for cramps.
October 23, 2009 at 11:05 am
Right! That points to the underlying question: If you a drug keeps you from consciously feeling something, how does that affect the way your body is working unconsciously? Perhaps there are both up- and downsides. What are the trade-offs?
October 24, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I haven’t personally seen any significant evidence that pain medications slow the healing process at all. I guess, though, that it is possible.
What I will say is that Rebeca has a history of really bad migraine headaches. The only effective way to deal with them that she’s found over the years is to medicate them early, meaning before they reach a certain level of pain. After that the feedback cycle of pain and increased tension can make for 12-20 hour long periods of painful bed-rest with vomiting.
So I’d call that a positive outcome.
October 24, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I, too, had a dentist tell me to take a pain remedy before the after effects of dental care took effect and I started to feel the pain. He was saying that if we wait until after I started to feel the pain it would be more difficult to get rid of it.
I have noticed the same thing with trial and error.