Asprin vs. Advil?

[hagrid's dad]

Any reason to pick one over the other?

I've been taking aspirin, occasionally, on lifting days, if I'm still sore at bedtime.

[slmouradian]

Any reason to pick one over the other?

I've been taking aspirin, occasionally, on lifting days, if I'm still sore at bedtime.

Hi, I'm not a pharmacist or a medical doctor, but here goes.

Advil is a pain-killer with anti-inflammatory properties.
Aspirin is a pain-killer with anti-inflammatory, but also has blood-thinning properties which helps in the prevention of stroke and heart disease.

Why are you sore on your lifting days?

[hagrid's dad]

It varies.

On my Day A, I squat, press, and deadlift. All three put some stress on my lower back. The other day, after doing these, my lower back felt sore -- not injured-sore, just fatigued-sore. I took some aspirin before bed, so it wouldn't keep me up, and the next day it felt great and strong.

On my B Day, I end the workout with chin-up work. I can't actually do a chin up, so I'm doing full range chins with my feet supported for most of the work. Yesterday, I finished with some negatives, and my lats were DOMS sore afterwars. So I took an aspirin...

[Paul1]

In terms of choosing one for symptom management I would choose ibuprofen, e.g. Advil. Advil and other "NSAIDs" have some safety issues but for a variety of reasons I trust their safety more than that of Aspirin. Either way, they're both pretty safe if you're not taking them all the time and you don't have any contraindications to them. The heart disease issue is not really an 'advantage' of aspirin because the drug is dosed and used differently when that is the reason it's prescribed.

[hagrid's dad]

Yep. I did discover, though, that "Bayer back and body" has a bunch of caffeine in it. Perhaps not the best idea as a "pain med before bed" pill.

[Paul1]

That's a combination tablet, of course -- Bayer is just a brand. Caffeine helps some people with migraines, so you tend to find migraine combination tablets that have a pain med (acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or aspirin) plus caffeine. It's just as easy to get the pain med by itself.

[hagrid's dad]

Sure. It's just the "aspirin" that I happened to have in the medicine chest when I went looking. Guests have ravaged my supply of ibuprofen over the course of the summer.

[AK49]

I didn't know aspirin was still used for pain relief. For me, Advil/Ibuprofen works a lot better than Tylenol/Acetaminophen which works a lot better than aspirin. However, if you are older and take a low dose of aspirin, you should take Tylenol instead of Advil. Advil interferes with aspirin somehow and makes it less effective. Now, if you are really in pain, you can take Advil and Tylenol together for a double whammy effect.

[Paul1]

Aspirin doesn't interfere with Advil, but they have redundant / overlapping side effects that may be additive if you use both.

That said, if you take 81 mg a day of Aspirin, and you don't have other contraindications to Advil like ulcers or kidney disease, I don't think using Advil for occasional pain relief is a big deal.

[jkw]

Aspirin doesn't interfere with Advil, but they have redundant / overlapping side effects that may be additive if you use both.

That said, if you take 81 mg a day of Aspirin, and you don't have other contraindications to Advil like ulcers or kidney disease, I don't think using Advil for occasional pain relief is a big deal.

Paul1, why is nabumetone not available OTC? It seems better than the alternatives.