Kathleen Huggins <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Mom 
> now feels badly that she took the medication for so many days when in
> retrospect her post-op pain might have be managed just as well with 
> an OTC anti-inflammatory med.

Unfortunately, using anti-inflammatory medication carries its own risks,
including psychiatric adverse reactions such as depression or psychosis.
The only really florid postpartum psychosis I've seen was a reaction to
indomethacin.

Then there's the issue of gastric ulceration and haemorrhage, and severe
allergic reactions. Again, one of the first cases of anaphylaxis I saw
in general practice was a reaction to a single dose of NSAID. This
seemed so unlikely to the person concerned that it took hours of
intermittent questioning - including several instances of very specific
questioning on medications and tablets - before the history was
elicited.

NSAIDs seem to be marketed as these super duper no-side-effect
medications (in the opiate-phobic USA particularly), but in my
opinion/experience they're nowhere near as benign as the marketing would
have you think.

All medications have their risks and benefits, and both NSAIDs and
opiates are no exception. Both need to be managed carefully and
considered in the first instance when people have unexplained symptoms.

Lara Hopkins

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