Anti-inflammatories and Pain Pills

Popping Pain Pills - If you're like most individuals, popping pain pills has always been the quick fix. The problem is Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), the kind in Motrin®, Advil® and Aleve®, have some very nasty side effects. In 1985, the high brow British medical journal The Lancet reported NSAIDs actually ate away at joint bone reducing the success in hip replacement surgery. Twenty years later on April 7, 2005 the U.S. FDA issued a public health advisory warning on NSAIDs and is requesting a "black box" warning be added to the professional product labeling and/or inserts of all NSAIDs. The black box warning is the strongest warning the FDA can request. Reasons being, NSAIDs increase the risk of cardiovascular (CV) adverse events like heart attack and stroke. Life threatening gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding is another side effect of these medicines.

Meanwhile, the FDA has asked OTC products containing NSAIDs like ibuprofen and naproxen sodium - the ingredients in Motrin®, Advil®, and Aleve® - to revise labels to provide specific information on CV and GI risks as well as skin reactions. See worstpills.org for more data. Unfortunately, this little known but very destructive fact doesn't even get acknowledged on WebMD.com. But medical science doesn't lie.

More concerning is growing evidence that suggest that NSAIDs may inhibit your body's natural healing response. "If you treat a joint muscle problem with NSAIDs it certainly reduces pain over the first week. However, it prolongs healing time by 14-28 days," says James Montgomery M.D., former team physician for the U.S. Olympic Team. Golfers should know that if they must use NSAIDs they should do so knowing it will delay recovery.

In the last year alone it's become clear that stomach ulcers are a direct side effect of using NSAIDs. A rarer side effect is an impact on the kidneys. Sadly, even if you avoid the worst side effects, the fact that NSAIDs work as pain killers can promote a false sense of security. The truth is pain is your body's way of preventing more injury. So by numbing yourself with pills you are deafening yourself to this warning. Reducing joint inflammation is the key to getting back on the move again, allowing you to resume activity and promote recovery. Only then can you regenerate the power, coordination and feel you need to get back in the game.

What About Glucosamine? Naturally occurring and widely used, glucosamine is a fine joint care product that is very well tolerated by hundreds of thousands of people. Years of research shows that glucosamine helps joint problems by providing the building blocks to promote reconstruction of damaged cartilage. Glucosamine works both as a raw material or building block of cartilage regeneration and also as a stimulant to help joint tissue re-heal and build. Glucosamine also has mild anti-inflammatory properties. There is however one big problem with glucosamine. Glucosamine is a non-rapid acting intervention that takes at least 6-8 weeks to get noticeable affects. If you're taking or plan on taking glucosamine, then please check the bottle. If you see Glucosamine Sulfate - KCl or Glucosamine Sulfate - NaCl or Glucosamine Sulfate as Salt, then you ought to know that up to 30% or more of the glucosamine that you're ingesting is bound up in salts. Under FDA law manufacturers can of course legally say that they are giving you whatever dose is listed on the bottle. But the active bioavailable amounts of actual glucosamine are going to be much smaller than the reported dosage because it has to be carried in the salts. So as with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

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