The Alternatives in MS Pain Medicine

One thing that those who suffer the pain of multiple sclerosis can tell you is that when it comes to MS pain medicine, over the counter drugs such as aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen are of no use as they have no effect.
The fact is that the pain associated with this disease originates within the central nervous system and this makes it much more difficult to actually control.
If standard over the counter medications do not have any effect and neither do many of the standard painkillers, what are the alternatives? Heavy Duty Alternatives Since the common aspirin is not effective as an MS pain medicine, most doctors and researchers are turning to some very strong medicines as they search for a way to successfully manage the varying levels of pain that many patients suffer from.
In general their choice of medications will be one of a number of different anticonvulsant medications, for example Tegretol or Neurontin.
What might strike you as strange about this is that although they often work, no one knows exactly why they work.
How can it be that such heavy duty medications that are used for the treatment of epilepsy can also relieve many of the painful symptoms of multiple sclerosis and yet doctors do not know why? In many cases the use of these medications for pain was discovered through much trial and error.
Sadly even though Neurontin is prescribed five times more frequently for MS pain than it is for convulsions, the FDA has still not approved its use.
Are They Safe as MS Pain Medication? This is a question that has more or less already been answered.
In a large number of cases these medications do work to alleviate the pain.
However, they are not without their fair share of side effects and problems.
To start almost all of them have been shown to make the user very sleepy or fatigued.
This can be a major factor for the person who must drive or work while under the influence of one these medications.
Considering there are at least 6 or more anticonvulsants used as an MS pain medication and that each of them has a different mechanism of action, it should come as no surprise that they also have a range of side effects.
These include dry mouth, sudden drops in blood pressure and rather than stopping seizures, they can actually cause them.
Finding the right one or combination is a matter of trial and error and can take a long time.