Part of the addiction mechanism is how it works on the nerve cell receptors. There are drugs other than morphine types (any MD’s or pharmacists please correct me) such as Toradol that effectively act on the opiate receptors but does not zone the person out and is not as addictive. This I know from some broken collarbones (personal experience), and I do not like how some painkillers zone me out.
Even if a person tries to tough out the pain, the pain also causes elevated blood pressure.
Toradol use still needs to be monitored, since it has some nasty side effects on the GI tract. It’s not good for any long term use. http://www.drugs.com/sfx/toradol-side-effects.html
I had a Toradol injection to break a cycle of very painful cluster headaches. I read somewhere only two states consider it to be an addictive opiate.
Toradol (ketorolac) does not work on the opiate receptors but is a very powerful non-steroidal analgesic. Think of it as Aleve (naprosyn) but many times more effective. Much of the post operative pain is due to inflammatory response of the tissues that is mediated by prostaglandins. This drug interferes with the production of prostaglandins by blocking a metabolic pathway the body used for this production. It is very effective for short term therapy. I used it post operative after getting off the morphine pump when I was an organ donor, hepatic hemiectomy.
•Ketorolac tromethamine, a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug, blocks prostaglandin complex formation and production through its S-enantiomeric form. It is a potent analgesic that does not possess any sedative or anxiolytic activities [7][3][4][12].