7 Best Medical and Therapeutic Interventions for Acute Pain

Acute pain can be hard to ignore. It often comes on suddenly and is intense, typically resulting from an injury, illness, or surgery.

Acute pain usually lasts less than two to three months, says Trishul Kapoor, MD, in the department of pain management at the Cleveland Clinic in Twinsburg, Ohio. “This type of pain tends to resolve once the underlying issue is addressed.”

Even so, treating acute pain is important — not only to alleviate discomfort but to support healing and reduce the risk of long-term complications, including the transition to chronic pain. Depending on the cause and severity of your pain, combining methods to control the pain is often the best approach, says Dr. Kapoor. Here are some strategies your doctor may suggest to manage the acute pain while your body recovers.

1. Over-the-Counter (OTC) Medications

You can get fast-acting pain relief without a prescription. Acetaminophen and nonselective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS) are the first line in most pain treatments. These medications work by inhibiting prostaglandin production, which is a chemical that triggers pain, swelling, and inflammation.

Combining acetaminophen and a NSAID like ibuprofen reduces the amount you need to take of each medicine, lowering risk of side effects, and is more effective than using either medication alone, says Kapoor. A typical combination would be alternating doses every three hours (taking a dose of acetaminophen, then waiting three hours and taking ibuprofen, and so on).

2. Pain-Numbing Procedures

Kapoor says these methods are becoming increasingly common because they reduce the use of opioids and speed up recovery after surgery.

3. Corticosteroids

4. High-Tech Alternatives

5. Physical Activity

6. Combining Approaches to Treat Acute Pain

“For acute pain, [using] the multimodal approach and getting ahead of the pain is the best approach,” says Medhat Mikhael, MD, pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. He adds that treating the associated symptoms of pain, such as nausea, is important, too.

7. Opioid Prescription Medications for Pain

“Opioids are not recommended as a first-line therapy and should be reserved for severe, refractory pain when non-opioid therapies are contraindicated or ineffective,” says Kapoor. For severe traumatic injuries, invasive surgeries, or severe acute pain, immediate-release formulations at the lowest effective dose can be prescribed for no more than three days, he says.

In the form of drugs like morphine, codeine, methadone, fentanyl, and oxycodone, opioids work by blocking pain receptors in the nervous system and they trigger brain responses that make us feel good. While there are some cases in which an opioid prescription is justified, the possibility of opioid abuse is one of the reasons they are prescribed with caution. However, there are other reasons they may not be the best choice, says Kapoor:

• They are associated with hypogonadism [when the body makes little or no sex hormones], worsened mood, exacerbation of depression and anxiety, tolerance, diminished efficacy, osteoporosis, and opioid-induced abnormal hypersensitivity to pain.
• There is a risk of opioid medications causing severe life-threatening respiratory depression when mixed with other sedatives, muscle relaxants, antihistamines, or alcohol.
• The risk of addiction is increased not only in patients with a history of substance use disorder but also those with depression and anxiety.

The Takeaway

• Acute pain is sudden and intense and is usually associated with an underlying issue such as injury, illness, or surgery.
• There are multiple ways to treat acute pain, such as using over-the-counter medications, regional nerve blocking agents, and steroids — but combining approaches works best.
• The use of opioids to treat pain should not be the first-line treatment but they may be used when the pain is severe and not responding to other treatments.