Thank you for joining me again this evening for these nightly podcasts. I am Dr. Harrison Campbell main chiropractor and Restoration Health at Premier in Sugar land chiropractors office. Performance podcast in hopes that you can take tips and tricks to your daily life to have a healthier happier life style. And in tonightÃs podcast we will be discussing non steroid anti inflammatory medications more commonly referred to as NSAIDs.
These non steroid anti inflammatories are over the counter medications in certain doses that people use for pain. While used properly to combat pain there are some side effect which we will discuss today.
The biggest side effect is the effect these non steroid anti inflammatories have on the blood. As sugar land chiropractors know medications like Tylenol and the generic acetaminophen are blood thinners. Now this does not mean that they decrease your blood volume. What thinning the blood refers to is the ability for the blood to clot.
There are clotting factors in the blood which is what allows out cuts to stop bleeding after a time. Most individuals are capable of this though there are individuals who suffer from Von Willebrans disease. These people as sugar land chiropractors can tell you and are incapable of clotting due to defects in one of the factors required to form clots in the blood.
Sorry we got a little of track there. Back to the non steroid anti inflammatories. These medications reduce the blood ability to clot. It is why low doses of these NSAIDs are used during and to prevent heart attacks in some people. Now while useful in these conditions thinning the blood can have serious consequences in certain situations.
For example sugar land chiropractors understand that when surgeries are being performed having blood thinners active increases the risk of the surgery. By reducing the ability of the blood to clot excess blood loss becomes an issue during the surgery. The last thing a patient needs during surgery is a depleted blood volume plume due to poor clotting leading to a required blood transfusion.
I have had a patient who has suffered with this complication during a surgery he underwent several years prior to coming under my care. He unfortunately had a compression fracture of a lumbar vertebrae combined with a disc herniation. Prior to the surgery he had used acetaminophen for pain and the nurse in charge of his care during the pre operation phase cleared him for surgery while the acetaminophen was in his system. Once on the table the incision made for the surgery produced excessive amounts of bleeding. The surgical team managed to control the situation complete the surgery and stem the bleeding successfully in this instance. Thankfully everything worked out in the end but that is not the case for everyone who suffers under this complication.
Now we briefly mentioned the benefits of thinning the blood with low doses of non steroid anti inflammatories for some patients. Patients who have a high risk of blood clot formation or are at high risk for heart attacks can benefit from the blood thinning. We will start with the clotting aspect. Again the NSAIDs interfere with the clotting factors our blood has. This can and does prevent harmful clots from forming in some patients allowing a decreased risk of suffering a major health event.
What we mean by a major health event is what sugar land chiropractors call throwing a clot. Patient who have clots form in their blood vessels are at risk for parts of this clot or more accurately termed a thrombus to form and follow the blood stream until it becomes blocked due to the diameter of the blood vessel. This then proceeds to block blood flow preventing nutrients from reaching the cells beyond where the clot is stuck. The loss of blood and by extension nutrients and oxygen kills the cells. This cell death is what actually occurs in a heart attack.
Now depending on where the blockage of the vessel occurs determines if the health even is a heart attack or stroke. Often times people are confused by which how both events can be caused by a similar scenario. Should the clot break off and travel towards to heart is can enter the blood vessels which feed the heart. This will produce a heart attack or as sugar land chiropractors call it a myocardial infarction. Should the clot instead travel towards to blood vessels in the brain and create blockage there the resulting health even is a stroke.
Now in the stroke where a clot created blockages the brain tissue being supplied by the particular artery dies in what is known as a cerebral infarction.
If you ask sugar land chiropractors which is the more severe scenario the likely answer is both. While many people know someone who has survived what is termed a small stroke those same people are also likely to talk of how someone passed away from a heart attack. However just because more people associate heart attacks with fatality does not minimize the severity of a stroke. The brain can be viewed as the main controller of the body. If you damage the rights parts death can occur. Even if death does not occur the impact of brain tissue dying can produce decrease the quality of life of the patient severely. For instance my grandmother has suffered what is termed a mild stroke in the past. To this day she struggles to find the words she needs to use to describe a situation even if her motor skills or movement is relatively normalized at this point in time.
I do hope you found tonight informative and educational. If you know someone or if you yourself suffer from pain please contact Restoration Health today in order to schedule an appointment. If you or someone you know needs the services of Sugar land chiropractors please call Restoration Health today as well so that we can schedule an appointment. Thank you once again for Joining us and I hope to see you have a good night.