Study Warns Heart Attack Survivors of Risks of Taking Painkillers
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Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Suffering a heart attack is bad but having another one is much worse.
And yet, a new study says that some heart attack survivors may be putting themselves at risk for a second myocardial infarction or possibly a stroke by taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve the pain of muscle discomfort and arthritis.
Dr. Charles Campbell, chief of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Tennessee Erlanger Health Systems in Chattanooga, wrote an editorial for the Journal of the American Medical Association arguing that drugs, such as ibuprofen, naproxen and Celebrex, may be unsafe to use days, weeks or even months after a heart attack.
While he’s not telling patients to just and grin and bear pain, he nevertheless recommends they scale back on NSAIDs as much as possible.
The goal now, according to Campbell, is finding safer solutions to these common painkillers that will lessen the risk of internal bleeding that can lead to another heart attack or stroke.
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