STL comments on Living Forever is Hard, or, The Gompertz Curve - Less Wrong

46 Post author: gwern 17 May 2011 09:08PM

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Comment author: Alicorn 19 May 2011 06:44:28AM *  4 points [-]

I do not have debilitating, world-shattering migraines. I just get headaches. More days than not. I have one right now. My mom once had a headache for an entire year. (This remains a medical mystery.) I have on occasion had headaches that lasted so long that I expected to imitate her, although so far I don't think I've actually broken a full week (with breaks provided by ibuprofen).

I actually don't usually medicate them. I do that when they are so bad that they wake me up in the middle of the night, or when they occur early in the day; otherwise I let sleep take care of them.

The one time I tried aspirin for pain relief, I don't remember what it was for, although a headache was likely. I do remember that it gave me a stomachache which was worse than whatever it was supposed to get rid of for me. I wouldn't expect a tiny dose to have this effect, especially if I took it with food or something, but if I were forced to rely on it as my only analgesic, I would be in something of a quandary.

The question is not, "Which do you dislike more: headaches, or cancer?" It's, "Which do you prefer: effective pain relief for your extended, commonplace pain, or a risk-reducing drug which has not actually been extensively tested in your gender or age group?"

Comment author: [deleted] 19 May 2011 06:57:14AM 2 points [-]

Fair enough - if I were in your shoes I would probably make the same decision as you.

Comment author: Alicorn 19 May 2011 07:13:21AM 0 points [-]

All that said: is taking aspirin regularly and an ibuprofen once a week inferior to not taking aspirin regularly and an ibuprofen once a week?

Comment author: [deleted] 19 May 2011 12:09:30PM 0 points [-]

I don't know. Wikipedia says:

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, "Ibuprofen can interfere with the antiplatelet effect of low-dose aspirin (81 mg per day), potentially rendering aspirin less effective when used for cardioprotection and stroke prevention." Allowing sufficient time between doses of ibuprofen and immediate release aspirin can avoid this problem. The recommended elapsed time between a 400 mg dose of ibuprofen and a dose of aspirin depends on which is taken first. It would be 30 minutes or more for ibuprofen taken after immediate release aspirin, and 8 hours or more for ibuprofen taken before immediate release aspirin. However, this timing cannot be recommended for enteric-coated aspirin. But, if ibuprofen is taken only occasionally without the recommended timing, the reduction of the cardioprotection and stroke prevention of a daily aspirin regimen is minimal.[19]

Which of course doesn't mention the cancer effects, but there you go.

My intuition suggests that regular low-dose aspirin and weekly ibuprofen still has benefits that outweigh the risks, as compared to weekly ibuprofen only. However, my intuition didn't expect the effect, mentioned in the study's full text, where alternate-day low-dose aspirin appeared to have no effect on cancer.

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