So yall are just talking about baby meds for minor headaches. I’m up on that prescription grade headache medication for my debilitating migraines, and I can not take it more than a few times a month without doing irreparable damage to my kidneys and liver. Sometimes, dealing with headache pain is the healthier option.
Seek relief
Submitted 11 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website to [deleted]
https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/cf3045a4-9b06-4a28-8f4b-01b5e91436a0.jpeg
Comments
Baphomet_The_Blasphemer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
RGB3x3@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You must be on a preventative, right? Rather than just managing pain when they come on?
I’ve tried Nurtec, Aimovig, and about to start Ajovy.
Nurtec and Aimovig worked pretty well, though not perfect. If you haven’t tried a preventative, I highly suggest seeing a neurologist, if you can.
Baphomet_The_Blasphemer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
My medication is just for managing the pain/alleviating symptoms. I have seen neurologists and have been thoroughly examined.
My migraines are caused by having received multiple traumatic brain injuries due to blunt force trauma and concussive shock waves from being blown up while deployed overseas in active combat. Unfortunately, nothing much can be done about this accept for trying to manage the pain.
The good news is that I seem to be getting them much less frequently than I used to, so maybe my brain is attempting to heal itself. I used to get a migraine just about once a week. Now it’s only about once every other month.
Arcity@feddit.nl 11 months ago
Pain is healthy in so far that it indicates injury or sickness. It helps to tell you to give your body more rest. But if pain is chronic or gives you stress even during rest you do need medication
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Pain is not always an indicator of injury or sickness, such as OP’s migraines or people with nerve disorders. There are many causes of pain, including unknown causes.
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 11 months ago
For the curious: www.mayoclinic.org/…/drc-20360207
irmoz@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Boo hoo, someone couldn’t go 10 minutes without making something all about them. Of fucking course this is talking about normal headaches and not chronic migraines you fucking imbecile. Do you think someone’s gonna be recommending opioids as a daily snack or something? Yeah, we all know sometimes you can’t pop drugs like it’s fucking candy. But you’re not really here to inform, you’re here to say, “look at me, everybody, I’m the 1 in 1000 people this advice doesn’t apply to, aren’t I so fucking special??”
sudoshakes@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Opiates are not medically indicated for migraines.
Tristans are.
So are injections of Ajovy.
This person is not talking about taking opiates. They are talking about medications that suck to take, but reduce the electrical storm of a migraine in the brain.
RichCaffeineFlavor@lemmy.world 11 months ago
First try drinking a glass of water though
AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Water, apple, handful of nuts, Walk around for at least 15 minutes. If a headache isn’t on the way out then maybe try to shift the problem to your liver with some ibuprofen or Tylenol but it shouldn’t be the first thing people try.
lnee@lemm.ee 11 months ago
and eat some salt
Rukmer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
And just eat in general. My goodness sometimes I’m so surprised, I’ll be feeling terrible (usual for me) and I’ll realize I haven’t eaten in a long time and take like one bite of something and instantly my headache and possibly fatigue are significantly better.
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Holy shit people. Don’t take medical advice from some Internet forum filled with memes.
kevinbacon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Is this advice? Discarded.
FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Why is everybody taking a meme so seriously? Lol
paraphrand@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Kids these days.
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I follow that anime logic where I just need sleep and a massive buffet to get back to 100%.
tubaruco@lemm.ee 11 months ago
does it work
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Normally? Yes. Acetaminophen and a glass of water doesn’t hurt either.
kratoz29@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Yes, most of the time, not recommended for internal bleeding or alike though.
camr_on@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Are you Naruto
AEsheron@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Most headaches are caused by blood sugar imbalance, which in turn are often caused by changes in diet or sleep habits, and/or dehydration. If the meals help then yours may tend to be from low blood sugar.
RGB3x3@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It’s almost guaranteed that it’s mainly because of dehydration. SO MANY people these days are constantly dehydrated (myself included, though I’m trying) because they’re drinking nothing but sodas, coffees and teas.
If everyone could drink at least 2 liters of water a day, they’d feel much better.
breakingcups@lemmy.world 11 months ago
… but not too often.
If you have regular headaches, see a doctor. Could be hay fever or other allergies for example and there’s stuff that works much better for that than painkillers.
dingus@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah even OTC drugs aren’t necessarily safe to take daily and indefinitely. Depending on the medication, you can end up with things like stomach ulcers or even liver damage. Once in a while is fine, but if you’re needing to take something daily, you might want to get checked out or try some sort of other methods.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
the thing is, medicine specifically comes with instructions for this reason. Stay within the written limits and you should be fine.
barsoap@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Usually it’s tension headaches. The solution to that isn’t meds, either, but chilling the fuck out and better posture. Yoga, callisthenics, actually pretty much any kind of sport should help. In acute cases, try a hot bath. Or some good Indica wait no that’d be meds. Valerian is probably as far as you should go, it’s not a downer as such but makes it harder to forget that chilling out is an option, needs a regular schedule though if you’re wired up.
Sheeple@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Excuse me I would rather not build up resistance to painkillers and then be screwed once I REALLY need painkillers.
The headache sucks, but it’s not wisdom tooth level pain
enki@lemm.ee 11 months ago
There’s a VERY big difference between “pain relievers”, NSAIDs, and “pain killers” which are opioids. NSAIDs are effective and safe if used properly.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 11 months ago
Not all pain killers fit into those two categories.
The normal headache pill, paracetamol (most notably sold as “Panadol”), is neither NSAID nor opioid.
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So much medical misinformation in this thread but it looks like there’s some merit to acetaminophen tolerance.
Less so NSAIDs. They definitely need more studies that take human populations into account because there aren’t any I could find that weren’t in rats.
Regarding acetaminophen resistance: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18468992/
Less so NSAIDs.
enki@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Not sure why you were downvoted, this a quality comment with academic sources.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
just make sure to read the information slip, and at least here in sweden the recommendation is to not treat headaches with pain relievers more than 9 days per month or it can just cause more headaches.
what i go with is just doing what i can to handle the headache/migraine without medicine, but feel 0 guilt about popping a pill if needed. Especially if i’m going somewhere or have something at home i want to actually enjoy i’ll not hesitate to medicate.
Kedly@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Pain is usually a message, often that message is “This body part is damaged, try to modify how you are moving to not aggravate the wound” In those instances I dont actually WANT to remove the pain because its helping me heal faster and correctly. When its bedtime and its stopping me from sleeping? THEN I’ll take some pain meds, as lack of sleep is also bad for my health
Croquette@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
It would be nice if it was that simple for everyone, but it isn’t. Migraines especially are debilitating for me and I will 100% take my pills over trying to ride the pain.
Sometimes, I know why I have a headache, but most of the time, it pops up for no apparent reason. Always had been since I was 10 years old. So fuck that noise, after a certain threshold, I take ibuprofen and acetaminophen instead of suffering for hours.
Kedly@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Oh yeah, I’m definitely not arguing against pain meds for when its extreme or not helpful, the human body isnt perfect, and our body systems dont work with computer like precision. I’m also pretty sure I have a dulled sense of pain.
PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Hey this is what I think too!
korewa@reddthat.com 11 months ago
I just saw a doctor about this, turns out chronic headaches are not normal. It turned out I have an allergy giving me congestion even though I’m breathing normally but enough to induce pressure on my head. Go see a doctor if you’re having daily headaches.
AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
If you have chronic trouble breathing through your nose, go see an ENT. That surgery changed my life.
dipshit@lemmy.world 11 months ago
medicine on other side of room tho
AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Spoken like a true someone who doesn’t have secondary side-effects to headache medication.
popemichael@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
Pain medication IS medicine!
There is no point in suffering.
Just because you are dependent on a medicine, does not mean you are an addict.
Gabu@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Just because you are dependent on a medicine, does not mean you are an addict.
No, it does… that’s pretty much the definition of it.
popemichael@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
You’re VERY wrong.
There is difference between the two as they are two completely seperate things.
I am a disability advocate, and I took many courses in college on this subject while getting my doctorate.
Drug dependence is typically defined as what causes tolerance and withdrawal. The physical effects of the need of medicine. Everything from diabetes meds, like insulin, to blood pressure medicine, to even cold medicine could be in that category.
It’s why a person shouldn’t use nose spray but for 2–3 days as you become dependent on it, causing you to need to consume it to be able to breathe out of your nose. (FYI: It’s a VERY bad idea to become dependent on nose spray as it SUCKS for a few days getting off of it.)
Addiction is a mental component. It is a neurological state of being. Some things are more addictive than others, with things that change the neurological state being more addictive than those that don’t.
For example, sex, roller coasters, and YouTube shorts can affect your brain chemistry in the same way that METH can!
TL;DR - Addiction is a neurological condition, while dependence is when a body depends on a substance medicinally.
The number of people who suffer horrifically because of the misconceptions of addiction VS dependence is sickening.
We NEED to remove this stigma of taking proper medication to increase the quality of life of the disabled.
fosforus@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
I’m not looking for glory, but I have a weird (probably unscientific) thought that if I don’t take a fever-lowering med, it makes the sickness go away faster. Because there’s a good reason why my body is doing that.
mrchampion@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You might actually be right, from what I’ve heard. Fever, like vomiting and diarrhea, does seem to actually serve a purpose for the immune system. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take anti-fever medications if you have a dangerously high fever, obviously.
Note, I am not a doctor, so take this with a grain of salt.
time_fo_that@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve actually wondered, if I deliberately increase my body temperature (via hot shower, hot tub, etc) will it help my body fight off an infection faster?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 11 months ago
I don’t take the headache medicine because it never actually helps with my headaches. 🤷🏻♂️
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
have you tried different kinds? apparently it really varies what the standard pain reliever is depending on where you go, i believe what i’ve always taken is ibuprofen here in sweden and that is basically a miracle pill that dissolves any sort of pain and cold symptoms within half an hour for me.
however do remember to not mix different pills.
aulin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
however do remember to not mix different pills.
What? Whenever I’ve needed pain relief enough where I’ve been to the doctor, they tell me to use both ibuprofen and paracetamil, as they have different active ingredients, and thus perfectly fine. They stress very much to not take too much of one at a time though.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 11 months ago
I’ve tried everything you can get OTC, including Midol. None of it works.
Veedem@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I just sent this to my wife lol. She needs to hear it.
The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website 11 months ago
I’m bad about this myself.
yamanii@lemmy.world 11 months ago
A friend actually needed this lol, just take your meds.
tjarod11@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There’s no glory in suffering, but there’s stubbornness in my heart.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 11 months ago
As someone has had a headache since 1986… take the medicine.
And if you don’t have any to take, keep talking to doctors until one of them listens.
byroon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Things a MF who will never ride in to Valhalla at the head of a winged horde would say…
Gabu@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Idk, man… I’m all for serving under Thor and shit, but headaches suck.
ignotum@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Glory can only be found through dying in battle,
To Valhalla!
Ibex@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The headache medicine doesn’t do shit anyway. I need a cold, silent room and sleep to make the headache stop.
deprecateddino@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ll be fine.
SadSadSatellite@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
(applies to all medications)
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
If im having a headache that means I have fucked up in some way, its motivation to correct the issue or sleep it away.
powerofm@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Yes to pain relief, but what about cold/flu medication? All they do is restrain the symptoms (like a running nose, coughing up phlegm, fever) which are your body’s attempts at fighting the virus. Shouldn’t that make you sick for longer because your body can’t fight as well? I’m sure my understanding of the biological processes is severely lacking.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Shouldn’t that make you sick for longer because your body can’t fight as well?
Short answer: It’s not necessarily true for most over the counter medication, with some exceptions.
Your body should have no trouble creating antibodies to fight off the infection because those drugs don’t act on white blood cells. And at around the three-to-four-day mark, the infection is almost guaranteed to go away on its own when the adaptive immune response kicks in.
Interestingly enough, most of the cold symptoms (except for fever) are part of the viral strategy to help it spread. In a weird way, the infectious agent kicks up your primary immune response to do its bidding.
What’s not recommended are fever-reducing medications. This is because elevating body temperature is your body’s way of reducing growth rates of most microorganisms and also speed up its own attack and alerts its own defenses. Reducing that temperature has a chance of increasing viral shedding. Ironically enough, this list of antipyrietic drugs includes Aspirin and paracetamol which are also used for pain relief. lol
My personal take is that it doesn’t matter much unless you’re overly concerned about being sick for–I’m guessing–half a day to a day longer with subsiding symptoms, and are overly worried about increasing the average rates of infections by a marginal amount.
(Full disclosure: I’m not a medical doctor but a former pharmacologist.)
AEsheron@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’ve read there is a lot of contention among doctors of whether you should fight a fever or not, with a lot of literature for and against it. My intuition is that, like most symptoms, it is probably best to deal with it as best you can without reducing it. But if it is causing you to have issues doing activities that will help you recover like sleeping, eating, etc, then to treat it.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Your body’s responses are overkill/unnecessary in a lot of cases. Like inflammation, a lot of that is so your skin will swell up near a cut so not as much dirt gets in it, but if you’re keeping it clean/bandaged that’s probably counterproductive. A runny nose, isn’t that just the virus tricking you into becoming more contagious? A fever, could be useful if it’s a virus that can do serious damage before your immune system can ramp up enough to handle it, but if it’s a less dangerous one that’s probably just self damage.
uphillbothways@kbin.social 11 months ago
What fun is taking a drug now for a condition it could treat, when you could put it off and justify getting real fucked later.
themakara@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Or don’t since most of them aren’t good for your stomach, liver and such.
lipilee@feddit.nl 11 months ago
Well do not do nsaid, is what i learned after about 30 years of taking them
carl_the_llama@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Is that a personal attack or something?
ivanafterall@kbin.social 11 months ago
But I'm out of ibuprofen and taking acetaminophen just feels like knowingly taking a placebo sugar pill. Ibuprofen tho.
Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I rarely feel like it ever helps, and it’s taxing on the kidneys/liver. So, I tend to not bother until it’s bad enough.
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 11 months ago
My friend works out and takes pain meds frequently.
He also complains about yearly kidney stones.
I have never had a kidney stone. Where he’s on his 8th one.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah, they’re partly genetic but you can risk it. I have a couple of friends who have had their third or fourth stone and I’ve never felt so much as a slight discomfort on my kidneys. It makes me wonder wtf they’re doing to themselves but I’m not one to judge.
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Was he on narcotics? I’m finding no link between Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen to kidney stones.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30829133/
Ibuprofen is mostly processed by your liver as well. Acetaminophen uses a bit of both.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4355401/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8669426/
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That was definitely the cause of my kidney stone, because I don’t take OTC pain meds frequently, but if you do have ways to avoid kidney stones, avoid kidney stones. They are no fun.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
i’m the polar opposite, if i have a headache/migraine or cold symptoms i pop an ibuprofen and suddenly it’s completely gone half an hour later.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Weird, because I can feel the Aspirin when I take it. It makes me feel ever so slightly numb all over and gummy at my core in a strange way. Kind of similar to when I eat a lot of sugar and it feels like I have syrup for blood and it leaves me lethargic.
nxdefiant@startrek.website 11 months ago
Aspirin is a weird drug. Stick to ibuprofen or even just acetaminophen if you have stomach issues. Naproxen Sodium, Ibuprofen and Aspirin all irritate the stomach lining, and aspirin adds a risk of bleeding since it’s also a blood thinner.
kratoz29@lemm.ee 11 months ago
I hear you, I can only pretty much take acetaminophen… And yeah, it won’t pay off well.