along with other meds prescribed for my mom’s heart condition, she has to take one Aspirin every day… how does such a low dose Aspirin benefit her condition?
I have always wondered why it was ‘81’ mg instead of ‘80’ or ‘85’ mg. It is almost like setting the speed limit at ‘67’.
I’ve wondered the same; and 80mg is available otc, but 81mg only by prescription.
Around here they sell 81mg OTC and I’ve never seen 80mg.
A typical traditional aspirin tablet was 325 mg. So, a quarter tab was essentially 81 mg.
The benefits of aspirin to decrease the chance of heart attack and stroke derive from aspirin’s ability to impair the blood platelets’ ability to form clots. In some sense, then, aspirin makes the blood thinner.
It used to be felt (i.e. guessed) that rather large doses of aspirin (say 650 to 1300 mg per day) were needed to fully “thin the blood”. In fact, lower doses do just as well (but with much less risk of causing stomach bleeding).
AFAIK, the optimal dose and dose frequency of aspirin for “blood thinning” has still to be determined. However, 81 mg is now frequently used since there was at least one ‘high quality’ study showing that it was actually more effective than higher doses.
Aspirin thins the blood. A small dose a day, is just fine to achive the disired results for most heart conditions it is prescribed for. Larger doses (i.e. 2- 325 mg pills), taken over a long term can lead to several problems. Liver and kidney diseaseis probaly dome of the more sever side affects.
I use to take 2 asprin /day thinking it was good for me; untill a friend of mine said “Your crazy, it’s not good to do that!” Unpon investigation boy was she right.
You’ll have no problems 2/day several times a day for several days, for minor pain. But asprin every day long term, see a Doc.
Here is a good site, and just Goggle Asprin.
http://www.fda.gov/cder/news/aspirin/aspirin_qa.htm81 mg because that’s what they’ve tested in studies, and, as previously stated, it’s a ‘standard’ dosage - it’s a kid’s aspirin, or 1/4 an adult aspirin.
The Goggles, they do nothing!
I hadn’t realized that Aspirin is a blood thinner. Interesting that lower dosages are more effective than higher dosages.
Thanks for links to the High Quality study and FDA site.
I actually think it’s the case that the baby aspirin all of us know – that orange-flavored chewable one from the St. Joseph Aspirin company – has always been 81 mg. So that was the dose that was tested in the studies. Some details from the company website here.
Aspirin doesn’t actually “thin” the blood- it interferes with platelet function and thereby inhibits clotting, but the actual viscosity of the blood doesn’t change when you take aspirin (or Coumadin, for that matter).
Yep, that’s it. It came from a single “baby” aspirin.
Melkor28- are you sure you’re not mixing aspirin with acetaminophen aka Tylenol? That * stuff is dangerous to the liver, not aspirin AFAIK. Aspirin can damage your stomach, sure. (You are supposed to consult your MD if you have liver damage before taking much aspirin, sure- but that’s not the same thing). Other than stomach bleeding, aspirin is pretty darn safe.
*in fact, acetaminophen is worse than they thought. It’s hidden in many OTC medications, and even a mild overdose, especially combined with drinking, can OFTEN lead to severe liver damage- in other words, it’s nto a 'rare side effect" that only a few are affected by. I suggest everyone carefully check the lables of all your OTC stuff- it’s in Nyquil for example. So, taking 3 does of Nyquil over 12 hours and also 6 extra-strenghth Tylenol and that’s enough to damage your liver. Make *damn sure * you don’t take too much!
The Altitude where I live in Bogota, Colombia is about 8700 feet above sea level. It is recommended that when you are planning to come here to visit to take a daily dose of 81mg aspirin for a week or two. It is purported to help avoid altitude sickness. I think that it also helps the heart to pump more blood throughout the body so that all the body receives more oxygen.
WATCH OUT, RADIOACTIVE MAN! 
Does nitroglycerin do the same thing? My mother has severe congestive heart failure and she has to take one of these tiny pills from time to time.
I have also learned if I need to give her one of these pills, make sure I am wearing a glove. They will soak into your skin and you get one hell of a headache.
Whereas aspirin interferes with the blood platelets (making them less able and less likely to clot thereby decreasing the chance for more clots to block the blood vessels), nitroglcyerin works differently. Among its actions are 1) its ability to decrease the amount of blood flowing back into the heart (thus reducing the work that heart needs to do), and 2) its ability to dilate narrowed blood vessels in the heart itself (thus allowing more oxygen to get to the heart muscle).
Because aspirin is a noncompetitive inhibitor of prostacyclin, its effect on the platelets it renders inactive is permanent for those platelets. You have to make new platelets to reacquire your clotting activity. This is why, when I was a surgical resident back in (mumble mumble), we used to tell prospective surgery patients not to have any for TWO WEEKS before a planned operation.
Tylenol, NSAIDS, on the other hand, are competitive inhibitors. When the drug concentration declines in the blood, the clotting returns to normal. If you don’t have NSAIDS within six hours of your operation, you’re fine.
I think the closest analogy is probably Von Willebrand’s disease (or Bernard-Soulier – which do you think, Karl Gauss?). If you take two to four regular aspirin every day, the way my husband did for a while out of sheer perversity, you will find you bruise like a six-day-old peach picked ripe from the tree. Unbelievable what pretty colorful bruises you can get by swinging your ankle lightly against the crosspiece of a chair.
Not much going on with regular low doses of Tylenol for people with normal kidneys (though don’t ever mix Tylenol and aspirin, or Tylenol and NSAIDS). But, not to use scare tactics, there is a major difference between really large overdoses, like those seen in people attempting to commit suicide with aspirin, versus attempting it with tylenol. If you empty aspirin down your throat, your ears will start to ring, you will get nauseous and vomit (central nervous system not just gastric lining), your acid-base balance will go horrendously out of whack, you will breathe way too hard, and you may die in the next few hours. With Tylenol, on the other hand, you will feel fine for a day, long enough to repent of your urge to commit suicide. You probably don’t know that if you went in to an ER now, told them what you did, and had them load you up with glutathione, you’d save your liver. No, but you will start to feel horribly sick in 24 to 36 hours, and it is your liver and then your kidneys that will blow out and fail you in ghastly ways. Death usually comes at four to five days unless they tide you through it. Transplant may be the only alternative option.
Yea I was a little off; the FDA web site said not to take asprin if you already have liver or kidney disease. I think I had liver disease in the back of my head from reading about acetamiophen at an earlier date. Sorry.
But I wouldn’t take any of the pain killers/ anti-inflamitory agents daily for long periods of time without consulting a doctor.
I very much doubt that the dose is crucial and you can save a lot of money by cutting ordinary 325mg tablets in four. Doubtless for marketing reasons, the 325mg tablets are a good deal cheaper than the 81mg size. And if you quarter them carefully, you get four doses.
Based on prices from CVS.com ($13.89 for 500 tablets x 81mg, $9.49 for 250 tablets x 325mg), you only save $6.50 a year. I’d gladly pay that to save the trouble of cutting 91 tablets into 4 pieces each.
Anyway, is it common for doctors to recommend a low-dose aspirin regimen to someone who doesn’t have any obvious signs of heart disease? Last time I went to the doctor he said: “You’re a male over 30 yrs old, so you should start taking 1 aspirin a day.” (I’d have a bit more confidence in his recommendation if he didn’t follow it up with: “Start out with the 325mg tablets and if you notice blood in your stool… er, umm, why don’t you start out with the 81mg tablets.”)