Okay, I’m still experiencing a little bit of culture shock in Orlando, a place that Screech-owl described as being in “far southern Georgia” and “way, way, way southern New York,” in so many words.
One Southernism that I’m trying to grasp is the cultural signifigance of headache powers – apparently, powdered asprin that you mix with water and drink. In other parts of the United States, you might see a few packets of Goody’s on the shelves of a drug store. Here, there seems to be a “headache powder aisle” – well, not really, but many brands occupy quite a bit of real estate on store shelves. There’s also plenty of commercials for varous headache powders, each with a few testimonials in a Southern accent along the lines of “drank me a pack of dang ol’ Goody’s, and mah headache done tuuk awff faster thayn Number Eight’s Chevy at Talladega, tell you whut.”
I don’t want to debate the superiority of headache powders versus plain old asprin. I’m just wondering why is headache powder so dang popular in the South, compared to other parts of the U.S.
WAG: a lot of headaches can be caused or worsened by dehydration, common in hot, humid climes. Pushing fluids, with aspirin in the fluids, would be a good idea. That is my factual-based stab at a hypothesis to your question!
For some strange reason, there’s people in the South who seem to think that they cannot swallow a pill. Nevermind that they swallow their food in hunks larger than the average aspirin, they seem to think that a pill is too large to be swallowed, so they’ll grind it up and mix it with water. Hence the “headache powders.” The companies all make claims that the powders enter your system faster, but I doubt if they do it any faster to make a noticable difference.
For this reason, do pharmaceutical companies offer both powder and pill forms to pharmacies, or are the Southerners somehow able to swallow a pill when it comes to matters of life and death?
Quadgop the Mercotan,
in cases where a person was unconscious, they would be administered their medications through an IV. Does this mean that most all pharmaceutical drugs are available in both pill and liquid forms?
They beg for small pills, and when they can’t get them, they place the pill between two spoons and use them to grind the pills up! I should add that the first time I discovered this by talking with my then girlfriend and her cousin. Mind you, my girlfriend could “swallow” me :), but she couldn’t handle a small thing like an aspirin! I don’t understand it, but there you have it.
they got to get working on headache relieving grits, washed down with headache removing sweet tea. An’ somehow, an RC cola and Moon Pie makes it all go 'way.
Firstly it’s Qadgop! I don’t need no stinkin’ U’s!
Secondly, IMHO, and drawn from observation in clinical practice, you need a market that will buy the liquid. That means most liquid meds are aimed at kids, so if a drug is not often used by kids, it’s unlikely to be in liquid form. Other common liquid med consumers: cancer patients, as the treatments for cancer often cause erosive esophagitis, making swallowing painful.
But it costs money to develop a form of the med in liquid, you can’t just suspend it in alcohol or corn syrup and sell it, it’s got to be extensively researched and tested, to demonstrate it’s safe and effective in that form too. So I would guess that less than 20 percent of solid form prescription meds are available in liquid form.
Want to learn how to swallow a pill? Start with a small pill, preferably a coated caplet, like tylenol makes. Get a big straw, put the straw in your favorite beverage (non-carbonated), drop the pill down the straw, and slurp it down! Taught by kids to do it that way since they were 2 and a half. Saves a lot of hassle
Sorry Wishbone I missed the thrust of your question in my first post. No, not all drugs are available for IV use. Some can’t be given that way, some don’t work that way, and some really aren’t needed that way. Most antibiotics have an IV form, as do heart meds and painkillers. But diabetics for example, while they can get insulin in an IV drip, don’t take their other meds that way. Some meds depend on their trip thru the gut to become active.
And the liquid form of oral medication is not meant for IV use. But I’m sure you knew that.
unrelated error correction:
Also, I taught my kids to do it that way, not by kids!
My room-mate in college took Goody’s powders straight from the envelope - no water involved. Just sprinkle it on his tongue and swallow. We’re both from VA (Southerners to the bone), but the thought of that just gagged me. Not to mention what it probably did to his stomach lining.
Just another peculiarly Southern “thing,” I suppose. Now, what did you say your mother’s name was?
At a sales meeting I ran into this woman from Memphis who was using this stuff and she just said the painkiller works faster in liquid form, as opposed to a pill that had to be absorbed and broken down by the stomach.
So I guess the question is why do all of us Yankees use pills? My hypothesis is that in the South it’s a more laid back culture, and everyone is willing to take the extra time to open a packet into water and mix it up. Us pushy, rush-rush-rush Northerners prefer the quick fix of a pill followed by a shot of water.
Well, I’m a southern boy born and raised in the heart of South Carolina, transplanted to SoCal (by way of Colorado), and I miss Goody and BC powders.
And let me say this loudly I have never heard of any sort of widespread pill swallowing aversion or disability. There may be a few anecdotal cases of doctors and aging southern belles who are too prissy to take a pill. But there is no cultural aversion to pills! Please dissuade yourselves of this stereotype! Aspirin powders are taken generally because they’re considered stronger and faster acting. The difference may be trivial, but I still chew my analgesics and painkillers. (Don’t mix any saliva with 'em, and you can barely taste 'em. It does take practice.)
I also submit that, at least in the case of aspirin and naproxen, powders are a bit safer because you don’t have this caustic tablet sitting there eating a hole in one spot on your gut.
I think there’s another reason for providing headache remedies in powder form: My grandpa, a southern Colonel if there ever was one, used to mix his BC powder in with a double of bourbon and water. (Gah! Disgusting I admit, but typical of his brand of macho.)
Tuckerfan, where the heck did you get that “Southerners” won’t swallow pills? I’ve lived in only Louisiana & Mississippi, and that “no swallowing pills” story struck me as bizarre & woefully inaccurate. Tell me what you are basing that on.
Untrue unfortunately. It’s what the aspirin and naproxen do after they’re absorbed into your bloodstream that causes serious gastric bleeding; they inhibit prostaglandin synthesis, and prostaglandin is a very necessary substance to keep your stomach acids from digesting the stomach lining itself. That’s why buffered aspirin and aspirin powders don’t reduce the incidence of bleeding, although they may reduce symptomatic stomach irritation a little.
Just a note but I’ve lived in the South my whole life and have only seen one person ever mix a Goody powder with water before taking it. Everyone else I have ever known just opens the envelope, pours it on their tongue and then drinks water, tea, beer, whatever. I realize that mixing with water first is done but most of the people I have known wouldn’t dream of doing it that way.
Most people find that it tastes worse if you mix it with water. (Which is probably why Grandad mixed his with bourbon.) If you pour it on your tongue, don’t get it wet with saliva, don’t touch the roof of your mouth, and wash it straight down without swishing, you barely taste it.
Same goes with chewed aspirin tablets. Mince them with your front teeth, not your molars. Try to keep it in one coherent pile, and don’t get much spit in it - just enough to keep it together. Then transfer the little wad of aspirin paste to the back of your mouth and chase with some soda or juice.
Sometimes, when my sciatica is really bothering me, I’ll do that with a painkiller, and chase it with a shot of single malt scotch. And then some soda or juice. It works noticeably faster and better.
IIRC, not long ago the ‘headache powders’ were the only asprin available by the single dose. I was under the impression that the only people who bought these were people without enough money to buy a whole bottle of asprin.
Around here if you go to a small store in a poor (likely black) neighborhood you will find many things sold buy the single. A store close to my house, but on teh other side of the tracks, sells cigs buy the single. Last time I was there they were a nickel each, but that was a few years ago.
<small voice>
Er, I kind of like the taste of aspirin.
</small voice>
I’m pretty thoroughly Southern myself (grew up in Louisiana, now living in Texas), and I’ve never heard anyone claim they couldn’t swallow a regular-sized pill unless they had a really sore throat or something. (Horse pills are more of a challenge.) For that matter, I really haven’t noticed that great a preference for the powders in general, or a real advertising blitz trying to create one. Am I just unobservant?