Saturday, November 09, 2013

OTC

I don't know why I'd have thought so, but I generally expect pain relievers to kick in as soon as the drug hits the bloodstream, or at least start trying. So ibuprofen seemed like so much candy: it never seemed to do anying at all.

I ran out of Aleve a few days ago, and since I have to stop taking it tomorrow anyway, I didn't bother getting more. The past five days have seen steadily increased shoulder pain. I wonder how much is inflammation and how much is the drug slowly leaving the system. And if it works like that as you stop, I wonder if it took several days to start working too--I just didn't notice because I don't usually stop to notice "no-pain."

1 comment:

Mark Reiff said...

Depends on the dose of IBU you are on, but it is generally accepted that IBU takes three days to build in the patients system before you are hitting maximum efficacy. Prior to that, you are getting some of the pain mitigation, but you aren't getting as much of the anti-inflammatory properties. Also the pain WILL increase as you stop taking your dose, Because the inflammation will start back up again as the IBU is eliminated from your system.