Mostly OT: ibuprofen vs. naproxen?

[kaiasgram]

For those of you who have tried both, do you find one better than the other for osteoarthritis pain?

[MaxDarkside]

For those of you who have tried both, do you find one better than the other for osteoarthritis pain?

Apologies that I don't have osteoarthritis and so can't comment on that, I do find that naproxen makes me a bit groggy and since it lasts 8-12 hrs (so they say, somewhat right), it lasts me through the night, so it's a mild sleep aid for me. Takes the edge off my nerve pain / body aches and I do sleep better. I take two at night (only), at times, so I don't end up getting into an analgesic rebound situation (again).

[kaiasgram]

Thanks, Max.

[Gin]

They are very close. When I had my last knee surgery the doc told me to take Aleve (Naproxyn). I found that for me it worked great for the pain, better than the prescription painkiller. Haven't used anything else since.

[justpam]

I have osteo and I have taken both meds. The naproxen is great for me,(prescribed 500 mg.). Like Max said it has a tendency to make me a little bit groggy. As long as I don't take one early in the morning it works out well for me. My usual sleep/awake times are to bed around 10pm and up by 5:30am. I find if I take one around 10 a.m. and then the another around 9 p.m. it works out great. Hope you get some relief.
Pam

[Suzjohnson]

Before I became allergic to both products, I got the most relief in my neck and lower back from naproxen.

Suz

[idamtnboy]

Fortunately I don't have to take either very often. When I have, I found that naproxen seems to attack bone related pain better, and the others attack pains such as headaches and muscle pain better.

[kaiasgram]

Thanks everyone, sounds like naproxen is worth a try. I appreciate the feedback.

[Gerald?]

Just as a third option, I found Indomethacin was significantly bettter for my arthritis than ibuprofen. You have to be a bit more careful about ensuring you take it with food. Did not have any drowsiness, even at high doses.

Can't say how it compares to naproxen, I've never taken it.

[Tino2You]

I have a herniated disc in my back. I take Naproxen when it flares up. My doctor gave me a script for 500 mg, twice a day. The last time I checked I can get a large bottle of Alieve for less than my co-pay. So I take two

As with ALL NSAIDs be sure to take them with food.

btw I have the beginning stages of osteo and the Alieve helps that as well...as in life YMMV.
-tino

[Kitatonic]

Over the last three decades, I've tried multiple anti-inflammatories, and even a half an Aleve (100mg) works the best every day,so I don't have to take to high a dose. For me, taking two for more than a few days, I'll develop stomach distress. Ibuprofen makes me a bit drowsy and like all the prescriptions, I have to take a full dose. Unfortunately, for my stomach,Celebrax does not seem to work at all.

[VVV]

For those of you who have tried both, do you find one better than the other for osteoarthritis pain?

Naproxen seriously disturbs sleep in some people - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73951&p=682667&hili ... en#p682667

The bad news is that ibuprofen does the same in some people.

[purple]

I have had serious OA for several decades. I went down that road of taking Ibuprofen and then Naproxen for decades, and I advise you not to go down that road. Both Ibuprofen and Naproxen can cause, like they did in me, serious gastrointestinal problems which leads to some stage of ulcers, lots of gas. I almost never had stomach problems before NSAID's. I walked around with a large bottle of Malox in my pocket. What is more openly talked about since Vioxx is that both Naproxen and Ibuprofen carry significant cardio-vascular risk. Taking either is like a ticking time bomb in terms of not just gastrointestinal problems, but cardiovascular problems.

While you may know of it already, consider taking Glucosamine Sulfate. Which is not recommended if one is allergic to shellfish. Glucosamine is not a pain killer, it provides the raw ingredients for the body to heal itself. To lift a line from wiki: "Glucosamine is often sold in combination with other supplements such as chondroitin sulfate and methylsulfonylmethane. Of the three commonly available forms of glucosamine, only glucosamine sulfate is given a "likely effective" rating for treating osteoarthritis."

The nutritional supplement industry has no standards and little testing. I took Glucosamine Sulfate several times that I purchased at health food stores, and it did not seem to help. Then I took some from a bottle that came from the VA, I had a huge improvement in just a few days.

One can also eat a greenish banana to get a pain relief effect like taking NSAID's. They say bananas with green still showing at both ends. I get them much greener when the rain clouds start rolling over. I have not tried, but heard that the core of pineapple has a similar effect. I dunno, maybe bananas have cardiovascular risk to, but I like bananas.

Wherever you are in the US, there is an Arthritis Foundation office that has a lot of literature, and would be glad for you to subscribe to their magazine, also a web site. They mention all kinds of treatments like gold injections, Synvisc and the use of Cortizone, and of course, they talk a lot about Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and its treatment.

FYI: GP's do not diagnose RA very well, but for good benefit to us. GP's use a blood test to determine if a person has RA, which is not very accurate, (last I heard it was 40 percent accurate). Most of those the test misses are probably better off not taking the very toxic RA drugs until they really develop more serious symptoms. The recognition of RA versus OA is somewhat folksy. If a person has most of their stiffness in the morning, when they first get up in the morning that gets better as the day wears along, (and often that stiffness starts in the fingers) and the painful joints feel warm to the touch, then that is most likely RA. If the stiffness and pain the joints gets worse during the day, and worse when the joint is used, then that is likely OA. All this is complicated by the truth that quite often an individual will have several different types of Arthritis at the same time. There are over a hundred types of diseases which drive the symptoms we call Arthritis.

We would not be able to afford for doctors to look for all the different causes, and a lot of them are rare. OA being the most popular, then RA, followed by Gout.

I mention my situation with Gout to illustrate one the problems of talking to doctors. Gout is caused by the kidneys not functioning well enough to clear Uric Acid out of the blood, and the Uric Acid deposits on the joints. While having an attack of Gout, it is extremely important to restrict one's activities, as the damage done by the Uric acid when the joint is used, is permanent. Sometimes I have pain in my left big toe, the most popular tell tale of the beginning attack of Gout. GP's insist that I should schedule a blood test for several weeks away, by which my symptoms would be gone. Often doctors serve the needs of their own institution. Doctors do not see the kind of constant pain of Arthritis as any kind of priority. Partially because they are helpless to do anything positive.

One piece of information that might be really fascinating to many on the board. In one of the Nordic countries, where the government sometimes funds studies which look for medical truths, as opposed to the US system where the governments attitude is that all health improvement comes from someone making a profit. (A game of winners and losers). In the nordic country they did a study where individuals were sleep deprived. Waking the patients up when they started entering the deeper levels of sleep. Patients had problems concentrating during the day, and also developed joint pains. When the patients were allowed to sleep for a few days, the joint pain went away.

For me, I know my Arthritis pain keeps me from sleeping as well. That is both of these health problems, sleep apnea and Arthritis, amplify the effect of each other.

Whatever you do to treat OA, it eventually stops working. That is an important truth of Arthritis, so let me repeat it: Whatever you do to treat OA, it eventually stops working. The joints get worse enough that one is left with using simple pain relief meds, and the enjoyment of life can be somewhat limited. Then one gets to follow the first quick bromide given to me, that I always hated to hear, and now do. Take Tylenol, or its generic Acetaminophen.

To me it was like someone saying that they ended global warming by pouring a half of glass of water on the Sahara desert.

In my travels looking for health care for Arthritis, I ended up in Boston, where I met a lady doc who offered me this story to go with Acetaminophen. One can take a dose of Acetaminophen and after 15 minutes or so, one can feel a little effect. A pain relief effect which I experience is so minor, PHoey. However, if one takes the maximum dose of Acetaminophen every day for ten days (then two five hundreds four times a day for four grams every 24 hours) the one builds a blood level which can give a pain relief that was also of a level that was among the highest rated of all. The special pain treatment program of the U Mass Teaching hospital had patients dying from some very painful cancers had better relief, and the patients preferred Acetaminophen over the strongest narcotics.

I think in that paragraph I stated the reason patients in hospitals find Tylenol/Acetaminophen insufficient, and one of the reasons doctors still prescribe it. Also, NOTICE: Now the maximum recommended dose of Acetaminophen is now no more than 3 grams a day, not four. The other reason is because Tylenol/Acetaminophen is much safer than any other pain killer.

Yes, some of you already know that Tylenol/Acetaminophen has as strong statistic that leads to kidney failure, and then . . . other problems. If I am not lucky enough to die in my sleep, then reserve me a couch at the Dialysis clinic. The date of my starting Dialysis is still a lot further off than the predictions of the problems with Ibuprofen and Naproxen.

Ibuprofen and Naproxen can be used for limited times, not recommended for continuous use for years. Even for limited time they might not be safe. Ibuprofen and Naproxen are off the list for me, as I already have had created similar cardiovascular risks caused by my taking Vioxx for OA. Almost no one who was not related to a Vioxx victim even remembers Vioxx, now withdrawn from the market. The damage accomplished by Vioxx is pretty permanent, two years after stopping Vioxx patients had double the risk from having a significant cardio-vascular event as those of the same group who never took Vioxx.

Back to treating both Arthritis and Sleep Apnea. If I do not have a blood level of Tylenol/Acetaminophen when I strap on the mask, then I will not sleep. I can take two five hundred mg. Acetaminophen (I use the generic-cheap stuff) just a few minutes before laying down. I will sleep about four hours and fifteen minutes, when my blood level of Acetaminophen has dropped, and I will be awake, unable to sleep. Curious in that I can not tell if any one joint is hurting at all. If I have arranged during the day so I can take more, I take two more five hundred mg. Acetaminophen, in about twenty minutes I go back to sleep for a bit over four hours.

As I have gotten my machine sleep settings to work better for me, I sleep better, and all my Arthritis pain is less during the next 24 hours. Uh, maybe I should place some responsibility of sleeping better on my taking Magnesium (from Dr. Oz.)

I am pretty sure that doctors prefer not to show too much concern over patient pain because patients will obsess on pain if the doc agrees it is there and important. On the other hand is "Fibromyalgia," which you might want to look up and give some thought about.

I understand the OP might be concerned about the damage done to joints by taking Tylenol/Acetaminophen when there is some reduction of inflammation from taking Ibuprofen or Naproxen. From what I have been told, OP is correct in thinking that further damage done to the joints from the inflammation of Arthritis, which can be reduced by NSAID's is permanent. I take two 325 mg Aspirin twice a day to restrict that inflammation.

I have spoke with some who gave up Cholesterol Lowering drugs, Statins, (Simvastatin, Lipitor, Pravachol) because they said it aggravated their Arthritis. I personally had serious Arthritis pain before taking Statins and having been through Open Heart surgery, so taking Statins seems mandatory.

A Dutch doctor, in a country which allows for Euthanasia once admitted that he had an older patient, with Arthritis who so irritated him with her complaints of pain that he finally told her he had a new treatment for Arthritis. He gave her the injection available to him for Euthanasia, and as she expired, he forged her signature on the documents given him permission to Euthanize her.

US doctors, in explaining why they have qualms about Euthanasia say that a great deal can be done to alleviate pain, even with the most painful diseases, if patients would find the right doctor to help them.

OP might keep in mind the information I got when I had open heart surgery (thanks again Vioxx) by my GP, "It is easier to keep pain under control, than to get it under control." If one finds the drugs/whatever to get their pain under control, then they strictly adhere to doing that, (might be a bit less pharmaceutical than getting pain under control) then one can go weeks with only some discomfort.

Since it is nearly Halloween, I think I should end with a weird story.

If one waits until the Arthritis pain manifests, and then goes to a place, like a library (used to be Barnes and Noble bookstore was a good place to look,) walk around and one can find a book which causes the pain to stop manifesting. Can one recognize which book out of the hundreds of others within six feet? I think so. One can get pain relief for a few hours by reading a bit out of the same book.

[Janknitz]

I was in constant osteoarthritic pain 7/10 on the perceived pain scale, 9/10 in my shoulders WITH daily Naproxen (unbearable without).

I dropped grains and sugars from my diet and I've been pain-free for the past year with NO meds. In my case it was nutritional, without a doubt. An inflammatory diet was the cause. And when I cheat, the bones remind me. Nothing tastes as good as I feel without grains and sugars in my diet.

YMMV.

[purple]

JanKnitz, Do you still take pain killers? If so, how much of what?