First of all you have to understand what are analgesics. Simply put and analgesic medication is a painkiller, meaning its primary intention and use is to eliminate symptoms of pain. Usually this is achieved in two ways. The first way is to block the pain signals transferred to the brain through the means of the nervous system. And the second one is making the brain interpret pain signals differently from what is common. Generally there are two types of analgesic medications: narcotics and non-narcotics.
Besides these two types of analgesics there are also other medications like aspirin and particular non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) that are commonly included and used as painkillers, but in fact they;re not. They provide some pain relieving effects but their primary purpose is elimination of inflammations, so including them to the class of analgesics is wrong. (continue reading…)