Entertainment For Lively Minds
Aspirin, a word from your healthcare provider
In our previous contact with each other, we may have given the impression that daily aspirin was a well-considered and altogether prudent part of the treatment for high blood pressure. Advice from your GP like, 'Take this or you'll die,', 'Go out and buy some immediately, any old generic aspirin will do,' and, 'It's either this or a massive stroke next week,' could have created the belief in the minds of some hypertense NHS users across Edinburgh and the Lothians that aspirin was 'a good thing'. Further research has led us to reconsider our position however and now the Lothian Joint Formulary Committee has made it quite clear that this allegedly harmless little pill can kill you stone dead if you as much as look at it. Even handling one of these monster drugs could make you bleed to death inside 18 seconds. As your healthcare provider, we now would like to make it plain that there is not a scintilla of truth in anything we've said about aspirin for the last couple of decades. We would urge the public to call the helpline advertised on our website (www.aspirindeathapocalypse.org.uk) whereupon trained experts in biohazard suits will descend from a helicopter above your home and take away every last 75mg pill before the Lothians are left looking like the countryside around Kursk in late August 1943. Thank you.
- More from Glenbervie.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Well
Aspirin could probably be described as a 'wonder drug', as it's useful for treating a variety of conditions. But like anything, it can have side-effects in some people (gastric ones, in particular).
I wouldn't take daily aspirin without discussing it with a doctor.
A few years back
the GP said, 'You have high blood pressure, take these.' One drug for the BP and aspirin as a chaser. I've been doing this for over four years now but a letter from the GP popped through the door the other day saying, 'We've changed out minds! Aspirin is evil! Stop immediately!' (some poetic licence in my paraphrasing). It made me LOL and think of the Private Eye column rolled out whenever the press performs a massive U turn.
Doctor, Doctor.
I read a lovely Garrison Keillor short story about twenty years ago where the two last smokers in American go on the run and hide out in a cave in Arizona until the authorities find them. Their kids try to smuggle them supplies, mainly Marlboro. Daily newspapers tell us different things every day, every month, every year. GP's used to hand out cigarettes to help you relax in their surgery. Heroin was originally marketed as a cough medicine. Valium, a barbiturate, was handed out like the proverbial Smarties to housewives during the 60's. As someone who has had to see a Doctor quite regularly over the past year or so I've learnt in middle age that a lot of it with Doctors and even specialists just seems to be a guessing game, maybe they're too busy and can't cope anymore. One GP told me to stop taking the medication, a second opinion said don't worry about it take twice the dose and it'll cancel it out (I am not joking and this after side-effects). In the short term some drugs can be extremely helpful but in the long term most probably must have a detrimental effect on the physical self. Who knows?
i'm fairly anti-drug as a rule
except when strictly necessary ... it may be a family thing ... my late gran was given some fairly heavy duty drugs because of nervous breakdowns way back in the 1960s and family lore states that she hated them (because they had some sort of psychoactive effect) ... my mother meanwhile benefited from anti-inflammatories and antibiotics which she reckoned calmed down her asthma and made it possible for her to have kids, in those same 1960s, so she gobbles down corticosteroids and antibiotics like Smarties ... mum however, now pushing 80, seems to be a walking advert for long term prescription drug abuse ... i try to steer clear of anything except when i have no choice (eg 'take statins' or 'change diet and get cholesterol level and weight down' - i choose the latter) ...
the change in interpretation over aspirin is interesting because it seems part of a statistical/spreadsheet-style approach to healthcare across a large population ... it aims at optimum treatment across the region as a whole, but it doesn't actually treat me or anyone else as an individual (the usual sub-5-min chat with a different GP every time you make a rare appointment isn't helpful either, but i do see why a holistic half hour chat over a cup of tea would't really work in terms of workloads and schedules at the local health centre) ...
Can I just say
I no longer gobble Smarties down like they were Smarties. Not since they changed the recipe. I don't like the new shell, not crisp enough, and the chocolate lacks taste. And I liked the plastic lid with the letter on the back. And I've never really taken to the Blue Smartie, came to stay for a couple of weeks in 1987 and it never went away. You've outstayed your welcome Blue Smartie, now go away and make room for more Orange ones.
Point of clarification from a Pharmacist
Valium, generic name diazepam, is a benzodiazepine not a barbiturate. They are very different things.
In short courses benzodiazepines can alleviite the symptoms of anxiety and are very effective medicines but used long term are addictive.
Lecture ends!
Aspirin Death Apocalypse
TMFTL
Or,
If they're as hardcore as their name suggests, three more from them now.
But only if they can undo the child proof cap
Er, You Love Horses?
Ok, each to their own, but wtf does this have to do with asprin?
(Click on the given link to see what I mean)
running joke
when i was ranting earlier, i made up the website in the OP, obviously, so there was no link ... elsewhere on the internet however (www.b3ta.com) there's a running joke about links to other websites and the DeAgostini I Love Horses page ...so i just chucked that in for a laugh ... sorry if it bemused anyone
I am very, very confused.
.
Go there Patrick
me too :)
I actually took two earlier.
How long have I got?
Are you still there?
Kid? Kid ...? Talk to me, Kid!!!!
I'm old enough to remember Disprin tablets
They tasted lovely and simply melted in your mouth. Not like this bloody paracetamol rubbish.
Aspirin is bad
For me anyhoo.
I'm not a haemophiliac, but I have ridiculously thin blood (was just the right side of it when tested as a baby), but obviously I need to keep my blood as thick as possible. Bye bye aspirin.
I love aspirin
because I wouldn't have my two daughters without it.
I had two miscarriages in 2004, both at three months. When I got pregnant for the third time, the doctors ran some tests on me. Turns out there was a problem with my blood clotting levels; they'd go sky high when I was pregnant, causing the miscarriages.
I had to take one half aspirin every day, while pregnant, to keep the clotting under control.
Thanks to aspirin, I have my two treasured daughters.
Brilliant stuff
Thankfully, being a dude, I never have to worry about this.
Glad to hear the use of aspirin has some fantastic outcomes.
Fish oil
is supposed to have blood-thinning qualities. I'm a prime candidate for a heart attack with a family history of dropping dead suddenly. Aspirin doesn't suit me and and I'm not a fan of oily fish. I'm not too keen on the fishy burps so I'm just waiting for the scientists to say it doesn't benefit obese middle-aged men then I can abandon them with glee.