Christine, at the site of a spinal surgery I had a few years ago, i developed some osteoarthitis. (My orthopedist says this is common at injury sites.) If you aren't already doing this, anyone who has arthritis might be interested in it -- a combination of chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine, taken two or three times a day, can create an enormous improvement. I know some people who claim it has 'cured' their conditions. When I first mentioned this to the doctor, he was skeptical, but now instructs all his patients with arthritis to take it. It's not a painkiller, it has some actual remedial effect. Regenerates cartilage or something.
You can buy this combination at the health food store. All the vitamin catalogs carry it now, too. It takes a couple of months for the effects to kick in.
About aspirin. A few years ago I read a small piece in the paper, probably the NYT, to the effect that lecithin taken with aspirin prevents the intestinal bleeding associated with that drug, and that aspirin manufacturers were exploring putting the two together in a single pill. The article mentioned that it was necessary to establish whether the lecithin would lessen the apparent heart benefits of aspirin.
I didn't save the article because I thought at the time that everyone would immediately know about it, but that's the one and only time I've seen it mentioned. But since then, any time we take aspirin, we pop a couple of lecithin caps first, biting on them to release the lecithin. Or you could take the granules.
It reminded me that there was a period of five years when I took 360 aspirin a month, a terrible five years during which I had a headache for 24 hours a day, and there were dreadful consequences, and my husband found a recipe for something they called 'tiger's milk,' one of the ingredients of which was lecithin. He made me drink a little of this disgusting substance (it contained brewer's yeast) whenever these symptoms returned, and it would clear them right up. We didn't know until i came across that article that it was the lecithin alone that was responsible.
I was going to PM this, but maybe there are other aspirin users here who would like to know about this way of eliminating (certainly greatly reducing) the irritant effects of aspirin.
The chemistry of how this works was given in the article, but I don't remember it. |
