What Big Pharma is calling medicine seems suspiciously like witchcraft.

But fear not, tis only science.

So how does the painkiller scientifically know where the pain is?

Let's take a look at the adventure of your freshly swallowed Advil to understand a bit better.

After a long journey down your esophagus, we end up in the stomach.

This is bad news for the Advil, considering your stomach is a pit of acid.

In this pit, our hero dissolves completely, and once that has happened, he moves into the small intestine, where he gets absorbed into the bloodstream.

From here, he travels through the portal venous system to the liver.

Once the liver gives the green light, the remains of our hero leave the liver and reaches general circulation.

Where is general circulation?

Everywhere.

But this still begs the question, how does it actually relieve the pain?

What is pain?

Though you feel pain in your arm, leg, or wherever else, pain doesn't actually happen in your body.

It happens in your brain.

But that's not to say that there isn't any action going on in your body.

In most tissue, you will find cyclooxygenase enzymes.

We'll call this cyclo.

When cells in your body are injured or experience stress, they release a whole ton of big words.

Cyclo has a bit of a crush on one of these big words, arachrodonic acid.

But cyclo lacks confidence, so in the approach, they panic and completely devour them.

They then turn them into something new.

Prostaglandins.

Prostaglandins.

Pro.

Sta.

Glan.

Dins.

Once this stuff is released, it quickly binds onto receptors in your peripheral nervous system.

That's the nervous part of your nervous system.

Then your peripheral nervous system sends signals using electricity to your central nervous system.

The big guy.

Brain cells then interpret these signals as pain, and inflames the area that's hurting.

But it's a faint pain, not really noticeable.

But because the brain hates itself, depending on how strong the electrical signal, a part of the brain cell called astrocytes releases the same attractive chemical cyclo-saw in the first place.

And oh hey, would you look at that, cyclo's in the brain as well.

And spoiler alert, pain.

Lots of pain.

You essentially echo the pain you already feel, making it hurt more.

Now this all works great, but it hurts.

And because we humans are little wimps, we must put an end to it.

Using little pills, or more specifically, nasets.

What a naset does is disguise itself as the attractive chemical released by the injured cell.

Meaning, it fits perfectly into where those injured cell chemicals usually bind to the cyclo.

And then, it just doesn't move.

It basically acts like a plug, not allowing anything to bind with the cyclo.

So no stuff is made.

Therefore, that signal to the brain is no longer released, your brain perceives less pain, and also, because it doesn't really know what's going on, it commands less inflammation.

So you're kind of killing two birds with one stone.

And again, this is happening literally everywhere, not just the hurt area.

But that's only for naset painkillers.

Other painkillers, like Tylenol, approach things a bit differently.

These painkillers are called acetaminophene.

But I'm just going to call them ace, because that sounds a lot cooler, and I don't know how to spell acetaminophene.

Ace gets into your blood the same way as before, and therefore, also reaches everywhere.

The difference is, they don't affect everywhere.

While naset painkillers block cyclo in the tissue, ace ignores the tissue and goes straight for the big guy.

Once it's in there, it plugs the cyclo in your brain, preventing it from making any big words, meaning there's no echo, and that pain you feel is very, very faint.

But hold on, if they both end up in the bloodstream, how is it that ace can get to the brain, but naset can't?

That's thanks to what I like to call the BB barrier.

This is what separates the blood from your brain, and it doesn't let much through, but it does have some small cracks in it.

Naset is bigger and mostly polar, which in chemistry talk means it's sticky.

On the other hand, ace is pretty small and mostly non-polar, meaning it's slippery.

So it kind of just squeezes through and ends up in your brain.

The downside of going straight to your brain rather than to the source is that the big word is still released where you are hurt, and sent to the brain.

So the brain still knows you're hurt, and while it's not echoed, it's still going really signals to inflame the area.

Okay, that's cool and all, but why does ace ignore the cyclo in the tissue, but not the cyclo in the brain?

That's because they're actually slightly different.

If cyclo is a puzzle piece where painkillers or pain signals are matching puzzle pieces, then there would be two slightly different variations, cyclo 1 and cyclo 2.

Cyclo 1 is located in your tissue, while cyclo 2 in your brain.

Pain signals and nasets are slightly simpler puzzle pieces that can fit with either, while ace is a very specific puzzle piece that only fits with cyclo 2, ending up in your brain.

Making you feel better.

Anyway, the Aspen and Tylenol is going to cost around 1 subscribe altogether, and I'll just flip the screen here real quick for you.