One nut per fruit! My fave!!!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

I guess you know what I'll say...

Every week I talk about how horrible certain foods can be for your body, and some of them really are, but what about self-medication? I mean, everyone takes Ibuprofen/Advil or Acetaminophen/Tylenol or, of course, Aspirin. Guess what?


But, when you're in pain it helps to have something besides caffeine.

According to The Free Medical Dictionary ibuprofen, i.e. Advil, Motrin, and Rufen Therapeutics, is a non steroid anti-inflammatory medication used to reduce swelling, headaches and mild to moderate pain. Another plus is that it's an anti-fungal, which is a huge plus for my particular diet. However, the common knowledge about ibuprofen is that, if taken on an empty stomach, can make you very sick. This sickness includes:
Headache, dizziness, drowsiness, nervousness, aspetic meningitis, arrhythmaes, amblyopia, blurred vision, tinnitus, nausea, vomiting constipation, dyspepsia, abdominal discomfort, GI bleeding, cystitis, hematuria, azotemia, renal failure, anemia, prolonged bleeding time, aplastic anemia, neutropenia, pancytopenia, thrombocytopenia, leukopenia, agranulocytosis, hepatitis, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, bronchospasm, rash, pruritis, urticaria, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, edema, and allergic reactions including anaphylaxis.
Basically, there are so many risks to putting a synthetically made substance into your body. My forte is not medication so I can't really tell you what half of these reactions are, but the half I know are bad.

My mother can be described as a sickly person, but she honestly is able to combat every physical ailment that comes her way. She has had back problems since she was as young as 16 and in the last two years she has had 7 back surgeries. Because of so much resting she has needed to do she hasn't been able to exercise at all. After the recovery of her last surgery she was able to start working out, exercise, and be much more active. Akin to her personality, she pushed herself and fractured her foot.

All this has brought me to a new understanding of ibuprofen.

Picture a bone that is weak, well picture any bone you want to picture, how does that bone grow? How does bone grow at all? A bone is like a muscle, so how does muscle grow?

To build muscle a person must create resistance against the muscle and break the muscle down then rest to rebuild the muscle. The rest is just as important as the actual weight workout because it is the rest and relaxation that helps the regeneration of the muscle. With that information, you have two bones that rub against each other. The more the body moves and the more resistance it has, the more the bone will break down.

Basically, Joe (my imaginary guy friend) lifts weights to be the hottest guy at the beach once summer hits. He goes to the gym to lift weights 3 times a week, each day choosing a different muscle group. What he doesn't know is that not only is he building muscle, but he is also building bone. So, he lifts those 50 pound weights, breaks down his muscle and his bone and rests for 3 to 5 days. In that rest time the muscle and the bone are able to regenerate. Every time a muscle or part of a bone regenerates it creates a little more. Over time, his thin frail (frankly their girl-like) bones will get so much stronger and he will gain the weight he wants.

What does that have to do with ibuprofen? Well, any anti-inflammatory medication takes away the swelling from the muscles and joints in the body to get rid of pain. When the swelling is gone then there is no breakdown of the bones. I hope you see where the chain effect is, if there is no breakdown of the bones then all the bones can do is get weaker and weaker. No weight gain for Joe and the possibility that if he gets drunk this summer and falls he could break something. (Especially if he doesn't take his calcium/magnesium.)

Life lesson, try to stay away from the ibuprofen, especially if you are recovering from surgery or a break or fracture of some sort. It will only cause more problems for you in the long run. But, if you have a headache and need to stay awake in class, by all means, take a few ibuprofen. (I do, I know it's bad but you've gotta do what you've gotta do)

1 comment:

  1. I have really enjoyed your blogs this semester. This one in particular was very interesting. I didn't know this about ibuprofen. What I think is strange, especially within our culture, is the overall attitude that something coming in pill form is safe, but things that come from nature can't be trusted. What I mean is, people seem to think that pills are okay, but many won't eat fruit that grows in their backyard because it's "dirty."