Top tips on avoiding common pain relievers

If all you want is stomach or joint pain to go away, you’ll reach for the pain relievers. But some of this medication is best avoided as they can aggravate other conditions. The following tips will help you make the right choices.

If you suffer from a burning pain in your abdomen that starts two to three hours after a meal and gets worse at night when your stomach is empty, you might be dealing with an ulcer.

Ulcers may also take away your appetite, cause weight loss, or make you feel nauseated.

That said, it turns out you can actually help protect your stomach by simply avoiding common pain relievers.

If you regularly take low-dose aspirin for your heart or use ibuprofen or naproxen for your arthritis, you're raising your risk of an ulcer. These drugs interfere with mechanisms that protect the lining of the stomach from corrosive stomach acids.

They thin the stomach's protective mucus coating, reduce production of an acid-neutralizing chemical called bicarbonate – similar to what’s in baking soda and reduce blood flow, which helps stomach cells repair themselves. NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) can also interfere with blood clotting; if an ulcer bleeds, it may do so even more freely.

In a study of more than 3,000 people, researchers found that those who had taken NSAIDs recently were two to 30 times more likely to have bleeding ulcers than those who avoided these pain relievers. The following expert advice could help:

• Switch to acetaminophen for chronic pain relief. It's not an NSAID and won't harm the lining of your stomach. To protect your liver, take no more than three grams per day, and avoid alcohol when you take it or risk liver failure.
• Take the lowest possible dose of an NSAID as infrequently as possible. Use this alternative if acetaminophen doesn't work for your pain.
• Add a second, stomach-protecting drug. Experts we consulted recommend the prescription drugs sucralfate (Sulcrate) and misoprostol to shield the stomach lining from damage if you must take an NSAID on a daily basis. Important caution: if you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, do not take misoprostol, which can cause miscarriage and birth defects.

If you need to use pain relief medication for your joints or stomach, it’s best to do so with a little bit of caution. There are ways and means of using pain relievers without risking the development of other irritations. These tips will help you decide on the best course of action for you.