[neverdem]

Another skater (an orthopedic surgeon) took ibuprofen to excess to keep the joint pain in check. His stomach blew out while he was performing surgery. Fortunately, he was in a room with other competent surgeons. It took 15 units of blood to keep him alive while the bleeding in his stomach was brought under control. "Dr. John" came close to making a premature exit from too much ibuprofen.

My mother became very anemic on 8 tablets of full strength Ecotrin and 5 milligrams of prednisone daily after some genius decided she had polymyalgia rheumatica, but you need to monitor kidney function with periodic blood chemistry testing too, IMHO.

[Myrddin]

Prednisone isn't something you want to be taking on a long term. When I discovered Beconase was a cortico steroid, it raised enough concern that I decided not to continue. I really should have arranged to tape it off, but that wasn't an option. I couldn't get a refill at the end of the bottle.

Ecotrin is essentially enteric coated aspirin so the tablet passes through the stomach before dissolving in the small intestine. Better for the stomach, but still quite capable of causing bleeding in the intestinal tract. I'm surprised there wasn't additional symptoms like ringing ears at that dosage.

There are some studies that suggest the heart benefits from aspirin are really a consequence of reducing the iron load in the body from the induced bleeding rather than the specific impact on prostaglandin production.

Aspirin inactivates both the good COX-1 and the bad COX-2. Unfortunately, COX-1 inhibition is the cause of stomach lesions and renal toxicity. COX-2 inhibition breaks the synthesis chain for substances that cause inflammation. The "ideal" approach would only block COX-2, but even that has proven to have bad side effects.