According to google, the maximum dosage of ibuprofen is 3200mg divided into 3 or 4 equal dosages (that’s 800mg every 6 hours). For reference, that is less than the weight of a paperclip. So what makes pills so strong that it’s extrmeley dangerous for a stomach that can literally devour steel to consume more than a paperclip weight of ibuprofen every 6 hours?
And that’s only ibuprofen, i’ve taken others meds which were WAY lower at 80mg max dosage and another one 10mg!
Note: didn’t know what to put as flair since it’s technically medicine or biochem (neither are available) so i chose biology since i’m focusing on an organ
In: Biology
When you swallow a pill, it goes into your tummy to help you feel better. But sometimes, the stuff in the pill can be a bit tough on your tummy, especially if you take a lot or if the medicine is really strong. Even though the pill is small, the stuff inside can be powerful and might hurt your tummy if you take too much. That’s why it’s important to only take the amount of medicine your doctor says is okay. Different medicines can do different things to your tummy, so it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor or the person at the drugstore if you’re worried about how a medicine might make you feel.
Isn’t it because taking too much ibuprofen is hard on the liver? I don’t think it has anything to do with your tummy, could be wrong though
The acid in your stomach is strong and it actually damages your stomach walls too, it’s just that the stomach produces a protective lining, while also producing new cells faster than they are damaged.
Drugs are generally designed to survive the acid in the stomach, get to the bowels and be absorbed into your bloodstream… but in what ways they can damage the stomach?
* Part of the drug can be absorbed directly by the stomach, where it can have a mild, local toxic effect
* The drug can make the protective lining less of the stomach less effective
* The drug is itself an acid compund (aspirin is acid, for example), more acidity in the stomach can damage it faster than it heals
To mitigate this, some drugs need to be taken after a meal, so that the drug gets diluted in the food and doesn’t packs a strong punch to the stomach, or you split the dosage trough the day.
But it’s not the only reason you can’t take too much of a drug at a time. If you take 3200 mg of ibuprofen in the morning, you’ll have a very high dosage in the morning which will increase side effects, after that you’ll body will start breaking down the drug, so you’ll have a mid, effective dosage in the afternoon and a low, ineffective dosage in the evening.
Spreading the pills trough the day makes it less likely to gess unwanted or toxic effects from overdose and makes it so the effect doesn’t wane off after a while.
It’s because ibuprofen, and other NSAIDs, work by blocking a pathway that helps protect the stomach from stomach acid. There’s a fine balance of proteins required to keep the stomach full of acid but the stomach lining safe. When you disturb that balance with NSAIDs it leads to gastritis (inflammation of the stomach lining) or have an ulcer (a local breakdown in barrier protection of the stomach).
Your stomach and small intestine has a protective layer of mucus (mucine) around It. It is made by gastric / small intestine cells to keep them protected against the acid from the stomach
When you take ibuprofen, It enters your gastric cells and inhibits the mucine secretion, thus making your stomach cells sensitive to the acid. And as You said, stomach acid is really strong.
This applys to pills called NSAID (non steroid antiinflammatory drugs)
Different pills have different mechanism. Eg: some antibiotics make the stomach slow so It causes nausea and/or bloating
Also it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the stomach itself. Pills are specifically made to have a lot of the active ingredient in a small amount of total stuff (so you can swallow it). Overdosing on medication is just generally being poisoned.
It’s not because of the effect of the pills *in* the stomach.
NSAIDs like Ibuprofin work by acting on the Arachadonic acid pathway, where they inhibit Cyclooxygenase enzymes.
These enzymes do a couple of things, most notable they mediate inflammation (hence these drugs are anti-inflammatory) but they also have a role in protecting and repairing the gut.
So when you have a lot of these drugs you really strip down the guts protection and repair mechanisms. It’ll cause ulcers and then prevent them from healing.
This is why you’re not supposed to us NSAIDs if you have any form of gut inflammation or other injury.
Latest Answers