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PaperclipPerfector  25d ago (text post)   2848 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 27, 2024

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I’m pretty can still feel pain if I pinch myself while on Ibuprofen. Different receptors? I assumed it was low-strength but didn’t think too hard about what that meant.

The physiology of pain is very complicated. Briefly - Ibuprofen is an NSAID, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug it basically works by turning off a part of the inflammatory response which is a large part of most types of pain. Bowel pain? Inflammation. Healing wound? Inflammation. Stub your toe? Inflammation.

If you have the right type of pain it can be immensely effective, even more effective than opioids in the sense that it can actually "heal" the pain instead of just doing other stuff (if swelling is pushing on a nerve for instance).

However it can be bad for you because you need inflammation......

For the wrong type of pain it's not going to do a lot.

A good rule of thumb is that if swelling is involved you'll want to use ibuprofen, if it's not Tylenol.

However how functional your liver kidneys, and gastric system etc. are matters a lot.

The specific example is interesting. I don't notice a damn thing from NSAIDs for pain that can reasonably be assumed to be inflammatory, and IIRC they're indistinguishable from placebo for osteoarthritis pain.

I found NSAIDs to do literally nothing for me for like 30 years across all sorts of injuries, then I encountered a very specific sort of neck-back ache resulting from poor form on power cleans that two ibuprofen instantly fixed. I could literally feel when the last dose would metabolize because the pain was so intense when present. I was basically chowing down on 8 pills a day for the week of that, otherwise I was unable to sleep or move my neck. Pain is weird.

Like I said pain is complicated, likewise pharm is complicated - some people are fast metabolizers of certain medication and get no effect at all.

Personally I find NSAIDs to be even better for low dose opiates for pain associated with significant inflammation (for me).

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