Immediate pharmaceutical intervention is essential to improve
the chances of recovery for patients of spinal cord injury.
There are three main categories of drugs for these patients:
anti-inflammatories, antioxidants, and anti-excitotoxins. Anti-
inflammatories act against immune system responses, antioxidants
prevent oxidation, and anti-excitotoxins fight excitotoxicity.
These three processes damage the spinal cord tissue, and are
explained in Secondary Damage. Within each of these three
categories, a number of drugs exist. Methylprednisolone is the
most prominent anti-inflammatory, though it also acts as an
antioxidant. Lazaroids are also antioxidants. Anti-excitotoxins
include thyrotropin-releasing hormone, Sygen, and calcium-
channel blockers. Ongoing research is being conducted to improve
current drug therapies, as well as to find new and more
effective pharmaceutical options. In this section: Inflammation
is a process that generally promotes the healing of an injury.
It does so in part by delivering addit