All kinds of pain respond to opioids. Most pain originates with the nerves in the spine. My intrathecal pain pump dump tiny amounts of narcotics directly into my spinal fluid and that treats pain throughout my body on less than 5 mg in 24 hours. The only other thing I take is amitriptyline , 25mg, once per day for neuropathy. Large doses of oral narcotics do have long-term consequences. The treatment becomes ineffective. You can also develop hypersensitivity to pain. I have experienced both conditions. As far as opioids is not treating neuropathy, I don't believe that's true. My doctor's justification for giving me the pain pump is the combination of neuropathy caused by chemotherapy combined with a need for high pressure compression of my left leg from my toes to my cro iijtch. It's a combination which is exquisitely painful. the only thing the narcotics do not treat is a sensation I occasionally get in my large toe that someone is driving a nail through my large toe
The amitriptyline prevents that from waking me up in the middle of the night. Having a very small amount of Narcotics leaked into my spinal fluid prevents any pain signals from getting back to my brain from the areas where they are created. The doses are so small b 500 uhcecause it is 100 to 300 times more effective to deliver on narcotics that way then it is even more effective than it would be to inject it in your vein. That means I'm getting the benefit of 500 to 1500 mg of Dilaudid every 24 hours, a dose which would surely kill me if I took them orally.