I have been taking aspirin (alternating with acetaminophen) for chronic pain. A good friend recommended switching to coated aspirin since regular aspirin can be hard on the stomach.
OK, so sometimes I take coated aspirin and sometimes regular aspirin. According to what I read about the coated aspirin, the reason it’s easier on the stomach is that the tablets have passed into the intestines before the coating dissolves. If this is true, it explains why the relief I get from regular aspirin is noticeably speedier than from the coated type.
But it also seems to me that despite the fact that both types are the same strength, I get more pain relief from the regular aspirin. Is this my imagination, or is regular aspirin indeed more effective than the coated type?
AIUI, the amount of aspirin in both is typically the same. As mentioned, the uncoated version should be speedier than the coated one, but there shouldn’t be any difference in effectiveness unless the uncoated aspirin is a higher dosage.
I am not even remotely a medical professional, but it seems to me that in pain management, it doesn’t really matter whether the relief is imaginary or not. As long as the pain goes away!
But after I posted it occurred to me that when I’ve been given prescription-strength painkillers (typically after surgery) I was warned to take the medicine when I first started to feel pain and not wait until the pain started to become unbearable because the medicine would not be as effective. Could that be what’s going on here?
It’s best to take aspirin with food. That way, you’ll be less likely to get an upset stomach or stomach ache. It can cause ulcers in your stomach or gut, especially if you take it for a long time or in big doses.
Which is not, by any means a double blind study, but has the following point:
However, with enteric-coated aspirin, research indicates that bloodstream absorption may be delayed and reduced, compared to regular aspirin absorption. Regular aspirin is quickly dissolved and absorbed in the stomach.
Sadly, it doesn’t include any links to the research in question, and the specific question was about it’s blood thinning capacity, rather than pain relief. But if the absorption is reduced, it would seem plausible that the efficacy for pain relief is similarly lessened.
ETA - this -may- be referring to the same research.
It refers to Dermot Cox, BSc, PhD, a pharmacology professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, who found the reduced efficacy (again for clots) in his research.