Pain-killer and other stuff (2)

 

Peter Wu & Others

19 October 2012

 

Sue:         My daughter Monica gets a very bad pain on the back of her neck whenever she flies. It usually happens during landing. I have seen how bad the pain can get and it would put her to tears. It worries me a lot as a friend's son had a similar problem and turns out he had MSM (malfunction of the blood vessels). I have been pushing her to get it checked out at the doctor's office. She still hasn't gone to see the doctor as she is so busy at work and has yet to find time to go. She also thinks that the doctor may not be able to find anything, etc, etc.

 

                Anyway, the reason I am bringing this up is that I owe my friend Bernard a big Thank You. As we were talking about this at the lunch table in April, Bernard suggested a few things (like depressurize the nose, etc). He said to take an aspirin 24 hours before flying. I think he said it would help thin the blood Monica took aspirin in her last two trips and it worked. She no longer experience pain or headache during landing. This is a big relief (but I am still going to get her to check it out at the doctor's).

 

                I thought I share this with the forum here.

 

Peter:      Sue, I would share a little bit of what I know about aspirin with you.
Aspirin was synthesized by a Bayer chemist who wanted to find a drug to treat his father's chronic pain. Fever-few was a plant that some people use to treat pain, even today! He acetylated the chemical from fever-few to aspirin. Aspirin is a wonder drug, safe for most people. Aspirin inhibits 2 enzymes called COX1 and COX2 which are important for the synthesis of a series of fatty acid-like chemicals called prostaglandins. It is called prostaglandin (pg) as it is first isolated from prostate gland. There are different pgs serving different important functions for our body. Let say there are bad and good pgs, yin and yang(in reality we cannot survive without the good and the bad).

 

                e.g. some patients are taking baby aspirin to prevent blood clotting and stroke which inhibits platelet aggregation and clotting. But too much aspirin, even baby aspirin dose may cause GI bleeding in people who are sensitive to aspirin. See the different pgs are balancing one another out to prevent clotting to death or bleeding to death.

 

                How does aspirin work for headaches and pain?

 

                Aspirin will help headaches because it dilates blood vessels except for some whose headaches are resistance to aspirin. Our blood vessels secrete PGI and nitric oxide which dilate blood vessels and thromboxanes (TX, another group of fatty acid-COX-related compounds) which constrict blood vessels and give us headaches. If they balance out we will be ok. As we are under stress, there is less NO available or the endothelial cells secrete less PGI to balance the activity of TX, our blood vessels constrict. If you take aspirin, you will have less TX, therefore less headache. But also less PGI and that is bad. So don’t take aspirin too much and too long. Many old people have arthritis pain and takes another group of pain killer called COX2 inhibitor. Since the patients have to it almost everyday. Some patients died. Vioxx has been pulled out of the market. Celebrex is available. I take Celebrex sometimes when I have muscle ache or joint pain, just 1 pill because I know the problem with it. But it does helps my pain and it does not upset my GI.

 

People take pain killers for different reasons. For those who are taking it for high and become an addict, that is sad. I had oxycodone for root canal two years ago. It is the worst drug I ever had. It gave me 2 lousy miserable days. I don’t why some people can get high out of it.

 

                As we age, we do get pains. Try relaxation, massage, yoga and other gentler means. Use pain killer sparingly. For those have stroke before, your doc will suggest you to take a baby aspirin if you are not sensitive to it. Hope I have not confused you!

 

Sue:         Peter, thanks for taking your precious time to provide such a comprehensive, professional and easy to understand explanation. Your advise and willingness to share your knowledge is valued and appreciated.

 

                My daughter Monica has not taken aspirin before and now using it to avoid the scary pain when she flies. She however has rather regular headaches and she tends to take advil. I know a bit more about Tylernol (especially after reading the email exchange on this topic), but don't know much about Advil. I know most prefer it for muscle/joint pain ( milder than Celebrex) but she somehow has always used Advil. Any view on Advil ? But only if you can spare the time as I know how busy you are.

 

Peter

Cheung:   Advil is a compound that inhibits both COX1 and COX2(Aleve is another one), less side effect than Aleve and aspirin. It is stronger than typlenol.

 

I've learned something new from this discussion. I didn’t know anything about headache during landing and the magic of aspirin. My daughter Amy also has headaches and prefers Advil. She thinks yoga helps. I think she was just eating too much cheese cake and ice cream. She likes to make them and she eats most of it as I would only eat a small portion.

 

                I also watch Dr. Oz and learn from his show. But he also talks about alternate medicine like a yellow green doctor sometimes.

 

Peter:      What’s wrong with eating too much cheese cake and ice cream?

 

Hey don’t forget your ‘thousand gold’ is one of the Y generation so their tastes and preferences are vastly different to ours.

 

I remember at your daughter’s age, I didn’t know what a cheese cake was. Ice cream was strictly a luxury. Morning and afternoon snacks? What are they?

 

My mother constantly scolded me for eating shitload of crab from road-side hawkers, like fish balls, wun tun noodles, tripes, that kind of things.

 

At least your ‘thousand gold’ is eating ‘healthy’ stuff.

 

I just find it so ironic that we humans cannot find a happy medium. When we didn’t have enough to eat which was not too long ago, we worried about a lack of nutrition and bodily health. Now we have too much to eat we also worry about (too much) nutrition and (too rich) bodily health.

 

Is the core issue more to do with the weaknesses (and recklessness) of human nature instead of with the quantity of foods?

 

 

-To be continued-