Acetaminophen may hinder the brain's error-correction mechanisms
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Acetaminophen has been shown to have an effect on social pain/rejection as well: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548058
It's an interesting drug.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/whats-tyle...
I'm hoping for a highly technical answer, but anything would be interesting.
So, the mechanisms of action are the key to both major effects and side-effects. If a medicine works well, it mediates a single pathway of protein interactions and produces no degradation products or side-effects in other pathways. Here are wikipedia descriptions of mechanisms of action for different medicines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol#Mechanism_of_actio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_of_action_of_aspirin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibuprofen#Mechanism_of_action
They do have COX inhibition in common. COX is a protein enzyme that mediates pain and inflammation response:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclooxygenase
However, they have slightly different side effects (secondary interactions) and some may have additional primary interactions (those that mediate pain). For instance there is evidence that tylenol has direct interaction with receptors in the spinal cord to mediate nerve signaling (separate from inflammatory and pain response sources via COX).
So, the indication of a side-effect with acetaminophen does not imply there is a definite side-effect with all painkillers (or even all COX inhibiting painkillers). Although it is a good indication that other painkillers should be evaluated for the effect and if it is common to all COX inhibiting painkillers then it may be that specific path.
Living animals are a beautiful and complex interaction of proteins and small molecules. It is exciting when we determine how one piece of the puzzle might work. The complexity involved makes it difficult to broadly apply results until the broader context has been evaluated.
> Paracetamol (acetaminophen) is generally not considered an NSAID because it has only little anti-inflammatory activity. It treats pain mainly by blocking COX-2 mostly in the central nervous system, but not much in the rest of the body.[3]
I view it as the check mechanism NOT kicking in as it should.
I have found that acetaminophen helps to put the check mechanism back in place. It can slow down or stop the runaway train.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/...
I have no idea how useful that is.
> Question
> How does one view IBM SPSS Statistics output if s/he does not have Statistics, or has an earlier version than that which produced the output?
> Answer
> For output produced by versions of SPSS/Statistics 16.0 and later (i.e., *.spv files), the free IBM SPSS Smartreader is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux from the SPSS Community (www.ibm.com/developerworks/spssdevcentral). Look for the Download materials for IBM SPSS Statistics.
You can see it by plotting "pe.diff.meanpz.cpz" vs "percent.omission.errors" from the data.sav file at the OSF link (I used the R "memisc" package). There is a correlation, but just slightly (eg the subjects with the highest error had middling Pe).
Also, the error rates correspond to the control group not clicking (on average) when they saw an F instead of an E 1-2 times out of 60 vs 3-4 times for the acetaminophen group.
They say "the effect of acetaminophen on errors of omission, while robust, was unanticipated". So this was the result of exploratory analysis. Personally I wouldn't put much stock into the idea that acetaminophen "hinders the brains error correction mechanism" based on these results.
We don't know yet whether someone in pain is going to make more errors than that person with their pain controlled by acetaminophen / paracetamol.
If you are not seriously ill, like having cancer or a broken bone, why do you take painkillers?
Imo, by taking pain killers you shut of the bodys built in protection thats telling you either to eat, drink or rest.
Few people should require to do this.
If you require painkillers to get through the day (or year) you should consider your position and how youre treating your self and your body.
Define seriously ill, I have a spinal condition, it's not going to kill me in the next ten minutes but it causes constant pain some days meaning I'm more functional with painkillers than without.
The sooner we figure out how to turn off pain the better, I know my spine is knackered I've seen the MRI's, I don't need a constant grinding reminder.
> If you require painkillers to get through the day (or year) you should consider your position and how youre treating your self and your body.
..or you have a debilitating condition that medicine can do nothing about and you need them to stay functional, I think unless you've experience chronic pain (or someone close to you has) you are not really aware of how insidious it is, unmanaged it will eat away at you.
EDIT: For the record I'll wager I'm considerably physically fitter than the average for my age, I cycle and swim a lot and workout every day, I also eat very cleanly but I can do those things because of the painkillers without them I'd be stuffed in terms of exercising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringomyelia basically a cavity in the spine that presses on the nerves causing pain and eventually permanent spinal damage, prognosis ranges from painful for rest of life through to you die depending on size, location and progression.
>I'm aware of him but what I have isn't well known or something that is amenable to normal physiotherapy.
He doesn't practice or recommend physiotherapy.
True however my neurologist disagrees and since she's a consultant with decades of experience I'll go with her view ;)
What im talking about is the increasing number of people who get a headache at work solves it with pain killers.
If you have a real medical condition its different of course.
I take about half the painkillers that are the average for someone with my condition but I'm also on the good end of the scale in terms of symptoms (partially because I lost a lot of weight, force myself to exercise and took up pilates) and partially because I have a highish tolerance for pain (I broke my elbow in three places and went to work the next day since I didn't realise I had) but I don't make comments on what other people need to do to get through the day.
The principle drug I take does have a marked effect on my cognitive performance so I have to walk the line between enough to be functional all the time.
Ibuprofen lets me get rid of my headache 90% of the time.
Sure, frequent painkiller use has side effects (stomach troubles for me), but the alternative is spending two days in pain unable to concentrate.
I know a few people who have been suffering from headaches all their life, and there just isn't a simple lifestyle change that will get rid of it.
How often do you drink water? Try having a water bottle with you so it's easier to hydrate rather having to get up and go to a water fountain a lot.
Looking at your bio, it looks like you're in a pretty sweet work situation right now, running your own business, so I would imagine that workplace stress isn't a major factor for you right now. Have you noticed your headaches decrease recently? Do you take sufficient breaks from your work, get exercise, etc?
Also, caffeine withdrawal will guarantee that you have a splitting headache for about 24 hours. If you do consume anything with caffeine, make sure you consume it every day. (IMO caffeine is best avoided, as it doesn't have any positive effects when taken long-term).
I've also discovered some things that seem to trigger headaches (drinking beer, not drinking coffee), and avoid them. I can't avoid some triggers like sudden weather changes, though. But mostly, I just don't know what triggered it.
Anyway, I appreciate your suggestions.
But if there's a real tension/migraine headache, ibuprofen is the only medicine that I've tried that helps.
But these days I'm very careful about taking ibuprofen, it hurts my stomach and I've already suffered vitamin B9/12 deficiency once. Not fun at all.
I also had stomach troubles from ibuprofen, so I try to vary painkillers (Paracetamol, Parkemed also seem to work), but fortunately I have less headaches now...
You think it's just a matter of choice or effort for all people? Life's not so simple, and you should learn a bit more about some of the things people face.
But still, if some developer at my office is getting neck problems, HR starts looking into her officespace, what chair is in use, can it be tuned, etc. People expect there to be an external cause for the problem.
Same person get headaches? Painkillers.
As someone who suffers from decades prior of poor typing, I think there is a cultural propensity to associate RSI/CTS with external solutions. Especially people talking about having surgery for RSI/CTS symptoms as a "cure" of sorts.
The way I try to describe it to the younger generation is like this. When you are young, you can put your body through a malicious amount of abuse through typing. As you get older, you may start experiencing pain of sorts directly related to binges of typing. However, they usually go away after rest. What happens is that eventually the rest does not fully subside the pain/strain/soreness, it is always there. That is RSI/CTS/whatever you choose to call it. You broke the camel's back.
I'm not saying these problems are fundamentally impossible to address, but there are currently problems that our present level of understanding is not very good at dealing with.
As a side note, I believe that ergonomics is currently a pseudo science that is only effective if you've got a common sort of problem. All the ergonomics advice I've ever been given for my problems has been terrible.
Which to me seems obvious given that it's a social-pain reliever. Frankly, a psychology experimentee has no motivation to "score well" other than pride, so any drug that reduces the sensation of shame would make an experimentee try less hard.
According to my personal experience, they definitely do.