As Effective As Mild Narcotics For This Nurse's Pain
Written: Nov 24 '00 (Updated Mar 11 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Effective, Lasting Relief, Inexpensive
Cons: Hard on the Stomach, Must Take on Food
The Bottom Line: Excellent Results for strained muscles in my case. Non prescription medication as effective as prescription pain killers.
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| nursefriendly's Full Review: Aleve Pain Reliever |
By profession, I'm a Registered Nurse working in Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Home Health.
Will give a few details bout the work I do and how Aleve is helping in this epinion.
The bedside nursing or direct patient care entails frequent lifting and stretching. Even with the best lifting technique, injuries and strains are common among nurses and nursing assistants.
Without Naproxen Sodium, the active ingredient in Aleve, I'd be working a lot less or taking prescription narcotics regularly.
Working while taking Narcotics is a dangerous proposition and something to be avoided at all costs.
Nurses are licensed to and responsible for administering Narcotics as part of their job. Taking them while being responsible for patient’s lives is not advisable. The risk of making mistakes or being accused of drug diversion (stealing narcotics for personal use) is too high.
Patients in hospital/nursing home environments are usually classified as "self care," "partial care" or "complete care."
The partial to complete care patients (typically 25-50% of our patient load) often need assistance to move in bed, to have their diapers changed (elderly or confused patients) to get up from bed to chair and to ambulate.
Post-op surgical patients need assistance to get out of bed and start walking quickly to facilitate recovery and discharge (HMOs will only pay for so many hospital days).
Depending on staffing, some of this duty is usually delegated to the Nursing Assistants, if available. A good deal of this lifting and transferring is done by the nurses.
Being a Male Nurse, I'm frequently called upon to lend an extra pair of hands when moving heavy patients and doing transfers. It comes with the territory and I’m happy to help where I can.
As a nurse, the #1 cause of disability among us is "back injury." Once your back goes in most occupations, your ability to work is frequently lost as well. In Nursing, it's a death toll signaling the end of your career.
Onto Aleve. On many occasions, I've strained my back trying to lift or push or pull with and without help (there are rarely in a Nursing environment enough helping hands to go around).
At times, the pain can get so severe that it's painful to sit and painful to lie flat. The doctors have said it is usually a case of strained muscles and will go away with "rest.”
Rest for most nurses is a luxury we cannot afford. This is especially true during a nursing shortage when there are not enough of us around to provide adequate staffing. (I’ll note here that there are an abundance of nurses available to work. The “shortage” is artificial and due to nurses not willing to work under conditions imposed by hospitals/HMOs (dangerously shortstaffed, forced mandatory overtime, etc)).
The other alternatives are to “grin bear it” or to take pain medications and “get through the shift” as athletes do to get through a game in sports.
The first medication I tried was common Tylenol, helped slightly but didn’t touch the worst pain. Moved onto Ibuprofen, Aspirin-all the common household pain relievers with only minimal relief.
My doctor initially prescribed Codeine, then Darvocet, mild narcotic analgesics, these did little to help the pain.
The most common side effect of Narcotics is constipation, which in older adults can be a major problem, in my case a little extra fiber and a stool softener worked well.
He tried Darvocet and Muscle Relaxers and other prescription combinations without success.
Then my fiance’ recommended Aleve. She had used it regularly for her monthly cycles and aches/pains.
Was a bit dubious at first thinking it wouldn’t help. In the back of my mind, I did remember that prescription Naproxen was given to medical patients for pain. The formulation available over the counter is roughly ½ the dosage of the prescribed version.
When I finally tried it, I was amazed. It worked as well as the prescription narcotics without all the problems associated with them.
For a $5.69 bottle of 24 pills, I was pain free with two pills in the am and one at night.
I’ll give fair warning that Aleve, a Nonsteroidal Anti Inflammatory, should not be taken on an empty stomach. Like aspirin and ibuprofen, its hard on the stomach and can cause upset. At the very least, take with a English Muffin or Pop Tart if not with a regular breakfast.
That aside, no problems with allergic reactions or other side effects here.
Melanie was kind and didn’t pull the “I told you so” routine when I was amazed at how effective it was.
Being a Nurse as well, she’s very good at planting “bugs” or ideas in a person’s ear for them to think about and act on later.
Be sure to read the labels and package inserts on all medications before starting something new. If you've got a history of ulcers or gastrointestinal bleeding, talk to your doctor before starting on Aleve, it may make the problems worse.
Andrew Lopez, BS RN
epinions@nursefriendly.com
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
nursefriendly
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Member: Andrew Lopez, BS RN, Nursefriendly, Inc.
Location: Mantua, New Jersey
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 72 members
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