So I was talking to my dad the other day and he's taking some pain relief and he's saying

it's not working.

And I had a look and I said, Dad, it's pronounced analgesic.

You put it in your mouth. Welcome everybody to another episode of Dr Matt and Dr Mark's medical podcast.

If you're a Scrubs fan, you probably knew that that was a wonderful joke from Dr. Turk

on Scrubs.

Today we're talking about pain relief.

But I think you can say here that some pain

medications can be taken or administered rectally. Really? So your dad isn't entirely incorrect.

No. It was just strange that that was his first port-a-call. So we're going to be talking

about analgesics, more specifically the opioids and opiates, right

Matt? I believe so. And they are taken for pain relief predominantly. So as we go through

this, we're going to talk, we're going to define some terms. We're going to go back through

the pain pathway and briefly talk about pain gate. We're going to talk about

the body's own analgesic system. We're going to talk about the receptors that these opioids bind

to. We're going to talk about the history of opium and then start going through some types of

opioids like morphine and heroin, for example. And then we're going to move on to addiction and

withdrawal. That'll cover most bases, don't you think?

I believe so.

So, let's start with defining some terms.

So, how about I ask you?

Oh, okay.

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