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Just make sure you have food in your stomach when you take ibuprofen. I used to take 12 a day in high school to play (badly) at sports and it can do a number on

Just make sure you have food in your stomach when you take ibuprofen. I used to take 12 a day in high school to play (badly) at sports and it can do a number on your stomach lining. Iirc the mechanism that causes it to dull the pain also creates stomach acid.

tt433 6y ago
Can't help but think we can't keep doing this to children/young adults...
0x1F8B 6y ago
I also took it daily and heavily in high school during basketball season for shin splints. Probably a couple of years of pulling that mess. I often think back now to how I had a complete system that timed for efficacy, taking a few 30 min before practice then more while suiting up, then even more if I could during and then after practice. I'd alter this timing on game days since practices were walk-thrus, etc. In some ways it's a relief to hear from someone else with that experience (this was 20 years ago for me).
pro_zac 6y ago
When I was younger (and stupider) I was prescribed giant 800mg ibuprofen pills for an injury. I wasn't in the habit of eating with them, and ended up burning the end of my esophagus with stomach acid. I could only eat popsicles and slurpees for a couple weeks because it was too painful to swallow anything else.
KMag 6y ago
> Iirc the mechanism that causes it to dull the pain also creates stomach acid. Maybe it also increase stomach acid production, but my understanding is that the primary problem is that it thins the protective stomach lining. Ibuprofen is a non-selective inhibitor of the COX enzymes. Inhibiting COX-2 reduces pain and inflammation. Inhibiting COX-1 inhibits stomach lining growth and the clotting process. Pharma has created selective COX-2 inhibitors, but some of those have run into their own problems (blood clots leading to myocardial infarctions in the case of Vioxx patients who weren't also on aspirin, IIRC... though, an increase in MIs would seem to be the natural and obvious side effect of intentionally reducing COX-1 inhibition. IIRC, the increase in MIs was in contrast to the traditional Ibuprofen treatment, not compared to an unmedicated baseline.)
ahartmetz 6y ago
Large doses of vitamin C taken with aspirin or ibuprofen also seem to help with the stomach acid problem. Inspired by a paper on PubMed (so this isn't entirely anecdotal) I tried it and it works for me. Food also helps but not 100%. IME it does not seem to "soak up" all of the excess acid. Vitamin C is also not 100% but IME more effective than food. I'm not a frequent or high dose user of NSAIDs, I just seem to have an easily irritated stomach.

tt433 6y ago

Can't help but think we can't keep doing this to children/young adults...

0x1F8B 6y ago

I also took it daily and heavily in high school during basketball season for shin splints. Probably a couple of years of pulling that mess. I often think back now to how I had a complete system that timed for efficacy, taking a few 30 min before practice then more while suiting up, then even more if I could during and then after practice. I'd alter this timing on game days since practices were walk-thrus, etc. In some ways it's a relief to hear from someone else with that experience (this was 20 years ago for me).

pro_zac 6y ago

When I was younger (and stupider) I was prescribed giant 800mg ibuprofen pills for an injury. I wasn't in the habit of eating with them, and ended up burning the end of my esophagus with stomach acid. I could only eat popsicles and slurpees for a couple weeks because it was too painful to swallow anything else.

KMag 6y ago

> Iirc the mechanism that causes it to dull the pain also creates stomach acid. Maybe it also increase stomach acid production, but my understanding is that the primary problem is that it thins the protective stomach lining. Ibuprofen is a non-selective inhibitor of the COX enzymes. Inhibiting COX-2 reduces pain and inflammation. Inhibiting COX-1 inhibits stomach lining growth and the clotting process. Pharma has created selective COX-2 inhibitors, but some of those have run into their own problems (blood clots leading to myocardial infarctions in the case of Vioxx patients who weren't also on aspirin, IIRC... though, an increase in MIs would seem to be the natural and obvious side effect of intentionally reducing COX-1 inhibition. IIRC, the increase in MIs was in contrast to the traditional Ibuprofen treatment, not compared to an unmedicated baseline.)

ahartmetz 6y ago

Large doses of vitamin C taken with aspirin or ibuprofen also seem to help with the stomach acid problem. Inspired by a paper on PubMed (so this isn't entirely anecdotal) I tried it and it works for me. Food also helps but not 100%. IME it does not seem to "soak up" all of the excess acid. Vitamin C is also not 100% but IME more effective than food. I'm not a frequent or high dose user of NSAIDs, I just seem to have an easily irritated stomach.