Americans just tell you it's a slight headache. In reality their back is so screwed up it's going to require surgery but they can't afford that and complaining about actual pain is strictly forbidden in American men.
So we take 200400800 1600 Motrin, with some bourbon, and ignore it as best as we can.
My girlfriend always makes fun that in Germany chamomile tea is the go to painkiller and only if that doesn't help the pills come out. It was one of her strongest culture-shocks she didn't anticipate before coming to Europe
I guess I'm Americaning wrong. As far as painkillers go, 've only taken one ibuprofen in the last year. I even had a severe gut pain event where they prescribed me some oxy but I never took anything.
I'm kinda in this meme. I went through one of those big bottles roughly every 1-2 months for 20 years. Sometimes 12 pills in one day, with 4-8 acetaminophen on top (they do giant double packs of those too). Chronic migraines, but every doctor I asked for help just told me to lose weight so it went untreated and got worse and worse. Our health care suuuucks.
I did lose the weight. It didn't magically fix my migraines, or affect them at all. Insurance dicked me around for another year and a half while my neurologist tried to help every way she could, but we finally got it down to only one migraine a week. I'm truly glad for that, but I still think about the years of unnecessary suffering, and how much better it might be now if I'd been treated sooner.
Is it common for ibuprofen to not really help? With physical pain it does nothing for me. It kind of helps with head aches sometimes. I use it maybe a couple times a year, so it's not tolerance.
Honestly I think the Americans have it right, here.
You end up taking fewer painkillers of you start taking them early and get ahead of the pain. If you wait until the pain is already severe, you end up taking more.
Idk why this happens, it's info I got from a nurse, and intuitively it feels right.
In the UK you can't even buy that many at once 😆 without a prescription at least - paracetamol and ibuprofen are usually 16 per pack and they don't let you buy more than one of each
i had to take 3.2g of ibuprofen for years before i got my gout under control. then like magic, naproxen actually starting working for me. now its just 600mg of that for the same effect