Pain in the Head

Contrary to popular belief, you should not be flushing those unused medications down the toilet.

I’ve read in local newspapers and on the news that our prior education on how to dispose of medications was flawed. Trace amounts of various chemicals from over the counter and prescription medications is being found in treated water from sewage treatment plants. The common misconception is that once it goes down the drain, all is good. That is far from the truth. Treatment plants have a list of heavy metals, biologicals, and chemicals that they must treat in order for the water to be safe to reintroduce to the ecosystem. However, this list doesn’t contain such complex chemicals as Prozac and Lipitor.

Fish and local animals are the most affected by this issue. The United States Geological Survey has a special section on their site dedicated to “emerging contaminants” in our environment.

I figured I’d pass this on to everyone since I’ve been in the dark about the issues involved with disposal of meds. I already keep batteries, cell phones, and computers from friends and family and make a pilgrimage to the local hazardous waste dump to dispose of the items for them.

So I’ve been fooled by Tylenol Rapid Release. The makers of Tylenol claim to have a breakthrough with the newest iteration of Tylenol by making it so much quicker to release the medication instead the gelcaps. What they fail to explain is, this does not mean your system will absorb the medication ANY FASTER. I think I was under the impression this was true. I did my own test.

I broke a regular Tylenol gelcap in half. By the way, the “gel” portion of gelcap just indicates the outside has a gelatin coating. The inside is solid. I took the two halves of the pill and timed how long until my headache went away. The very next time I had the same type of headache, I took a rapid release. My results were the same; within 6-8 minutes, the headache started to subside. This is totally not scientific since I didn’t control any variables.

Just don’t pay any more for rapid release. All they have are holes on the side of the pills.

Check out Third Way Blog for more information too.

http://www.snopes.com/business/redeem/pulltabs.asp

I’ve made it my civic duty to notify everyone :).

I’ve been using Excedrin (a generic equivalent) to hit a migraine before it gets too bad. I don’t get auras (if I’ve had one, I don’t recognize it) so I usually take it after the pain starts. It seems to help but I sometimes get rebound headaches after.

For those of you who choose to use Excedrin, here is a little fact you may not have been aware of. Excedrin Migraine is the SAME as Excedrin Extra Strength. Have you been wasting your money on the Migraine flavour of this over the counter drug? Well, now you know. Each of the two contains:

	Active ingredients (in each caplet)	Purposes
	Acetaminophen 250 mg	Pain reliever
	Aspirin 250 mg	Pain reliever
	Caffeine 65 mg	Pain reliever aid

I think they brand each differently to attract a different set of users who normally would think normal Excedrin does nothing. I’ve talked with my neurologist at length about this and his opinion is that the caffeine is honestly the most effective component.

Caffeine has a paradox effect, at least on me. If I ingest it, I can get rid of a migraine. If I take too much and stop, I get a headache that won’t go away. This is very common since what you’re really doing is altering the blood pressure when your blood vessels constrict. I know plenty of migraineurs that insist having a cigarette stops the pain. Smoking also causes migraines too for a number of people.

I guess the phrase of the day is “You’re screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t”. Find your own triggers and solutions. Don’t believe that because one person says it doesn’t work, that it’s not going to work for you. Keep a food and drug diary. Some day you’ll maybe find a clue how to help you out.