What Do Pain Pills Do to Your Cardio?
Question by Bobby: What do pain pills do to your cardio?
I train in MMA (not that good, just enjoy it), and sometimes you get pretty sore and endure some pain. Do prescription pain pills, or even just over-the-counter medicines have detrimental effects on your cardio? I ask because I have heard that your body actually goes into “detox” mode to flush them out, which then slows you down. Thanks.
Best answer:
Answer by Dr. Guess
If you use them sporadically.. (not very often) — Then regardless of the medication.. no, it will not effect any part of your body if you are other wise healthy.
Now, for more chronic use.. it goes something like this:
For all pain relievers , if used more than once every 10-14 days, there are quite a few theories in the scientific community that support the idea that your pain threshold is lowered due to the use. Especially of narcotic pain relievers.. ie: Opiates — e.g.: Lortab, Vicodin, Oxycontin, Codeine, etc.
Now Over the counter painkillers, Ibuprofen, Tylenol/apap, Naproxen Sodium, etc — the thresh-hold lowering theory is not nearly as pronounced.
Here are the only dangers to your body:
If you use OTC painkillers daily, or most days of the week — keep it at a limit of 2000mg’s maximum per day. If you use it sporadically, keep the limit at 4000mg’s for that one day you need it. (This is in a 24hour period, not all at once). — You see, OTC painkillers are metabolized hepatically and renally. So your kidneys and liver are effected. If you take them constantly, and exceed this general guideline the chance for causing trouble in these 3 organs go up considerably. So just use common sense, and exercise caution. Though, I wouldn’t take on the notion that you can’t have an Advil or Tylenol every once in a while for sore muscles/bruises etc.
For prescription painkillers — anything from Codeine, Hydrocodone to Oxycodone – You want to be especially careful.
Again, same principle applies: If used very sporadically.. not gonna cause any problems. If used on a regular basis (say a few times a week or even every day) — Then these WILL cause a dependency in your body.. and have a high profile to cause addiction.
The dependency is where you’ve heard the ‘detox’ and flushing idea from. This would take you , taking something like Lortab, daily, for months on end — then suddenly stopping to produce this effect.
I don’t think that is your intention at all, so the short of all of this is just use common sense and , no, they will not effect your cardio.
Hope that made some sense,