Opt For Drug-free Pain Control To Keep Heart Disease Away

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are prescribed extensively throughout the world. They are also consumed over-the-counter to treat back pain, headaches, menstrual pain, and arthritis. While most consider the medication innocuous, the truth is that many people are hospitalized each year from the side effects of NSAIDs and many others die.

Side effects of NSAIDS

- Side effects from long-term use of NSAIDs range from hearing loss to gastrointestinal bleeding. Unfortunately, there is no specific antidote for NSAID poisoning, which may lead to metabolic acidosis, multisystem organ failure and death.

- Side effects from NSAIDs may occur even with short-term use, increasing your risk of a heart attack in the first week to month if you take the medication consistently.

- NSAIDs increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, especially at higher doses.

- NSAIDs can increase the risk of heart attack in individuals with or without a history of heart attack or risk of heart disease.

- Patients treated in the first year after a heart attack with NSAIDs were more likely to die than those who were not treated with NSAIDs.

- There is an increased risk of heart failure in those using NSAIDs.

Symptoms less prominent in women

The signs of a heart attack are not always straightforward. There are several early signs that may not even seem related to your heart. Although chest pain is the most common, you may experience other symptoms and women may have a heart attack without feeling pressure in their chest. They may attribute the symptoms to less serious conditions such as acid reflux, the flu or aging. Even when the symptoms are subtle, the consequences may be deadly. Activating your emergency system early may reduce the risk of permanent heart 

damage and death.

Some symptoms of heart attack

- Chest pressure described as an elephant sitting on your chest
- Fullness or pain in the centre of the chest that may come and go
- Pain in the arm, back, neck, jaw or stomach
- Toothache that comes and goes
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Cold sweat, lightheadedness or nausea
- Indigestion or "choking" feeling
- Extreme weakness or anxiety
- Rapid or irregular heartbeat
- Pain that spreads to the arm
- Unusual fatigue that may last days
- General malaise or a vague uneasy feeling of illness

Myocardial risk differences between NSAIDs

Celecoxib and diclofenac showed a single wave of increased risk in the first week, while ibuprofen, naproxen and rofecoxib exhibited an additional increased risk during eight to 30 days of consuming the drug. These differences between NSAIDs may be related to the drug's' effect on renal function.MI risk associated with rofecoxib is found to be greater than those of other NSAIDs.

NSAIDs carry further health risks

- Women taking NSAIDs in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy had a significantly higher (2.4 times) risk of miscarriage.This may be due NSAIDs' effect on hormone-like prostaglandins that support pregnancy.

- Associated with atrial fibrillation in patients who previously had an MI

- Increases your risk of upper and lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract bleeding. Upper GI bleeding is more commonly reported, and occurs with all formulations of NSAIDs. Lower GI bleeding occurs with most NSAID drugs, as does increased mucosal permeability and inflammation of the lower GI tract. Other findings associated with lower GI bleeding include anaemia, occult blood loss, protein loss and malabsorption.

- Use of over-the-counter pain relievers, including ibuprofen, have been associated with hearing loss in men and women.

- Prescription strength or long-term use of NSAIDs and aspirin are associated with interstitial nephritis, a type of kidney damage that may be permanent, leading to kidney failure.

- NSAID use may also induce other renal function abnormalities, including fluid retention, electrolyte complications and deterioration of renal function.

Drug-free pain control

Pain control without addressing the underlying physical issue may increase your risk of experiencing side effects from medications, or lead you to resort to even stronger medications that have more dangerous side effects. So, it is always better to exhaust other options before resorting to consistent use of painkillers, even in the short term.

Sleep, for example, is one important factor in how you perceive pain. Getting eight hours of quality sleep on a nightly basis may help you cope with the discomfort you experience. Your pain experience is affected by several factors, of which sleep may be the most important. Sleep, pain and depression are a strongly interconnected triad where a change in one impacts the other two.