Different pain medications work in different ways. The two you were asking about work by binding to opioid receptors in your spinal cord and brain (namely your parietal lobe). Opioid receptors affect only pain, not sensations such as pressure, heat, or cold. If you were to burn yourself right now it would hurt--bad--depending on how badly you burnt yourself, but long term, it wouldn't hurt as bad as it would hurt normally. [The two medications you named are opioid, just FYI].
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