Painkillers are an interesting subject. People take thiem without thinking. And, of course they do. We are trained from forever to think of them as safe. Interesting how we become conditioned to think that because if you look at the label on the back the warnings are frightening.
It fascinates me how people are more willing to take them when they clearly state on the back that they can cause terrible things like liver damage, and more worried about taking natural substances that grow in the ground-not that you should eat everything from the ground!
However, I have to say, although I do know what I am talking about, giving my kids herbs is something I do without even blinking and in the few situations where I have been tempted I have tormented myself before giving them literally an infant dose of motrin. I was thinking about it this am-my older daughter has had mortin about 3 times in her life-maybe 4 if I stretch my thinking a bit. She is 9. My younger daughter I think twice- last night being one of them. She is 6.
Each time I gave it to them-even though it was an infant dose I worried I did the right thing. The reason I feel so apprehensive,is because of all of the warnings and dangers of taking NSAIDS definitely. But, more importantly I have saved it for those times I needed to take some pain away in the immediate for my children or for myself, (I take an average of about one 200 mg advil oncer per year) because the more frequent use of them can cause chronic illness like IC.
I have some patients who owe their IC exclusively to their overuse. This is not only medications like Advil and tylenol, but, other medications with those in them or anti-inflammatory medications. These types of medications create damage to the lining of the gastrointestinal system (as some other kinds of medications do) and encourage more leakage of intestinal microorganisms into the lymphatic system where they do not belong.
As this occurs, more and more inflammation sets in as the lymph is infiltrated and forms it's won attack. Much more can be read about this theory in my dissertation in detail and with many research articles citations. However this is the quick and easy explanation. This is one of the ways in which chronic illness may begin.
A common example would be that person who take 2 advil every four hours for the first 4 days of her period over a ten year span. It happens! Or another perosn who got into a car accident and takes RX antiinflammatories or NSAIDS every day to control the pain for months on end. It happens too. Another exmaple is that person who gets migraines several times per month and takes these types of meds for several days in a row to handle them. The examples go on and on.
What would be better to look at is why the pain is happening in the first place and deal with the imbalance of that saving the need or use of these types of painkillers for the rare headache or dental appointment, etc….
Hope this helps to answer this question.
Dr.M
