Pain relief medicine psychology
Do yo trust ” big pharma”? In that case you should read the following story reported by the BBC for another example for why you might want to be a bit more skeptic when it comes to their claims:
The manufacturer of a leading brand of painkiller has been accused of misleading customers in Australia. But how do people choose over-the-counter pain relief?
There’s a whole range of Nurofen products. There are Nurofen capsules, caplets and “meltlets”. Some are marketed to treat specific problems – Nurofen Migraine Pain or Nurofen Tension Headache.
But Nurofen maker Reckitt Benckiser has been ordered to take some of these “specific pain” products off the shelves in Australia. A court decided they were misleading consumers because the packaging made it seem as though they had been formulated to treat different types of pain. In fact, these products contained the same active ingredient – 342mg of ibuprofen lysine.
Reckitt Benckiser says that they are just meeting demand. They argue that 88% of people look for relief for a specific type of pain. Packaging tablets with clear labels saying “back pain” or “period pain” makes it easier for people to decide which one to get to meet their needs, they add.
But take this scenario. A customer has a packet of Nurofen Migraine Pain in their handbag. They suffer a tension headache. They buy Nurofen Tension Headache. By the Australian court’s view they are completely wasting their money – it’s fundamentally the same medicine in different packaging.
All of these specific pain versions cost about double the price of Nurofen’s standard version in Australia. The formulations used in Nurofen’s specific pain range in Australia contain lysine and sodium. The manufacturer says that this allows them to be absorbed faster than the standard version..
