Common Pain Relievers May Increase Risk for Complications with Infections (COVID19).

Medications that may increase your risks of COVID19 complications…

VERY IMPORTANT information if you’re concerned about any infection.

This Has Additional Relevance With The Current Infectious Risk As Mentioned In Several Studies Cited On This Blog!

NSAIDs (over the counter (Motrin, ibuprofen Alleve, naproxen,…) and prescription pain relievers (Celebrex,…), anti-inflammatories, and fever reducing medications) and tylenol (acetaminophen) reduce the body’s antibody production that protects us against infections.

• One 200 mg pill caused about 10% less antibodies.
• Six 200 mg pills drops antibody production by about 90%!

These commonly used pain relievers and anti-inflammatory medications also lower body temperature which is generally not a good idea when body is fighting a flu or any virus. Of course this varies with the person, the disease, and the amount of fever.

Why did taking fever reducers become a common practice even though a fever is part of your body’s immune response to help fight infections?

From the Journal Of Cellular Immunology Paper cited below…

“Its use was promoted by the drug industry, endorsed by doctors wanting to “do something’…”

“In conclusion, we report that a panel of widely used NSAIDs blunts antibody synthesis in human PBMCs and in purified B cells.

Ibuprofen’s ability to reduce antibody production was concentration- and time-dependent and likely occurred via Cox-2 inhibition.

Our results call for awareness regarding the consequences that NSAIDs can have on immunity.

NSAIDs are one of the most commonly used drugs; they are recommended for all age categories, are prescribed for relieving transient pain or in cases of serious inflammatory diseases.

By decreasing antibody synthesis, NSAIDs also have the ability to weaken the immune system which can have serious consequences for children, the elderly and the immune-compromised patients.”

Antibodies Are Important For Infections.

Antibodies are a part of the immune system that tag foreign invaders like bacteria or virus’ for destruction. Reducing antibody production would be considered a bad thing if you wanted to fight off an infection.

Pain Relievers, Risk Versus Reward

Pain relievers like NSAIDs or Tylenol/acetaminophen are commonly used.

They provide very short lived, temporary pain relief for a variety of conditions. The research above does show reason to exercise real caution given the current situation with a very contagious virus, the coronavirus 19.

Most commonly people take these medications for headaches, neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, knee pain, or some other musculoskeletal problem.

These conditions can be helped through other conservative means that do not compromise the immune system in any way.

Chiropractic Care is an excellent option for these painful conditions. Not only is there no risk of compromising your immune system, but Chiropractic Care can have long-lasting effects in that our goal is to correct the underlying problem causing the pain rather than simply reduce pain for a few hours with a pain reliever.

If you are suffering with headaches, neck pain, back pain, a recent injury like whiplash, or other musculoskeletal problems then we’re here to help you and Hagebusch Chiropractic Texarkana is open during the coronavirus crisis.

Need an appointment with a Texarkana Chiropractor?

Contact us! We’re here to help!

Reference: Paper published in the Journal of Cellular Immunology.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693360/