At present, there are several drugs available in the market to cure chronic pain, and now researchers have come up with another promising treatment that could help cope with severe pain.

According to UPI, using mice that were genetically altered to lack a distinct nerve channel that enables people and animals to feel pain researchers developed a two-drug method of treatment.

Nerve cells use several channels to communicate with the nervous system some previously conducted studies have shown that the sodium channel Nav1.7 is important factor for signaling pain, and people who are born with a non-functioning Nav1.7 do not feel pain.

According to researchers, people with the mutation usually have higher than normal levels of natural opioids, which they confirmed in both mice and people.

John Wood, a professor at University College London, said in a press release that there study has confirmed that Nav1.7 is a key element in human pain.

“The secret ingredient is good old-fashioned opioid peptides; they have filed a patent for combining low dose opioids with Nav1.7 blockers. This should replicate painlessness experienced by people with rare mutations, and we have already successfully tested this approach in unmodified mice”, he said.

Researchers during the study first gave mice without Nav1.7 naloxone an opioid blocker, and noted that the rodents could feel pain. Later they did the same thing with a 39-year-old woman who does not have functioning Nav1.7 channels. Researchers said the findings were surprising as the woman felt pain for the first time in her life.