Talk:Pain ladder

Why is/was there no reference to non-pharmaceutical treatment of pain. Certainly heat, cold, distraction, white noise, TENS, and many other modalities are preferable and adjunctive to long-term medicinal treatment. Boldklub-PJs (talk) 01:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Where are the references for the definitions of what constitutes each type of medication? Specifically...where is the differentiation among "weak" and "strong" opioids? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.78.137.226 (talk) 19:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I removed the comment about morphine being the mildest of the strong opioids because aside from not being cited it seems to be based on a misunderstanding that potency and power of effect are the same thing. Many patients will tell you that morphine has much stronger psychoactive effects than much more potent opioids like fentanyl, and at the same time there are strong opioids which are less potent than morphine such as pethidine, so in no sense can the statement be considered to be accurate regardless of the authors meaning. 94.6.0.110 (talk) 00:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

It is unclear what 'adjuvant' means. The article it points to only discusses the use of adjuvants in vaccines, not for pain killers. I also agree with the post here above that says non-pharmacological options should be included. For example, with kidney stone pain, which can be quite severe, a hot bath can be as effective as a narcotic, and relief is faster. Star-lists (talk) 14:19, 24 August 2012 (UTC)