Preventive Analgesia

Preventive analgesia is a practice aimed at reducing pain in the short and long term after surgery, by targeting the activity of the body's pain signaling system before, during and immediately after the operation. Surgery causes sensitization of that system that intensifies postoperative pain, and giving analgesic drugs at the right times around the operation can reduce that sensitization and so reduce the pain that follows; drugs studied for this purpose include pregabalin, acetaminophen, naproxen and dextromethorphan, alongside psychological interventions. Research has found that pain sensitivity before surgery correlates with the intensity of pain afterward, which in turn correlates with pain at hospital discharge and with the chance of the pain becoming chronic.