How much aspirin a day?
Taking an aspirin a day has been the conventional wisdom for many people who have some heart diseases or are at risk for them.
But, sometimes, people don’t understand that the recommendation is usually a baby aspirin, and, many are needlessly hospitalized with bleeding complications.
Recent studies have shown thathigh er (325 mg adult does of aspirin) are not more effective than lower doses (75-81 mg “baby” aspirin) at preventing heart attacks and blood clots.
But, as always, be sure to ask your doctor what is right for you or your loved one, and, where appropriate, make sure that an older parent or grandparent is aware of the different doses.
my mom and hubby both take the baby aspirin daily (81 mg)
I honestly didn’t know that. Color me stupid. Thanks for the post.
In 1996, through miscommunication with my doctor’s staff, I was instructed to start taking three aspirin four times a day–for a total of 12 full-strength aspirin every single day!
I had been doing this for several months by the time Thanksgiving rolled around. At dinner, I ate like a fool and seriously overstuffed myself. At about two o’clock the next morning, I woke up with chest pain that seemed to radiate down my arm. I was 50 at the time and convinced I was having a heart attack. My wife called 911, and I spent the next several days in the hospital, on the cardiac floor.
Tests revealed that I hadn’t had a heart attack at all. What I had was a scorched esophagus from all the damn aspirin. The touch of acid reflux that followed my Thanksgiving pig out was enough to set off memorable pain.
So, there was no heart attack that might have killed me. Getting out of the hospital was much more dangerous. A doctor ran me on the treadmill until the only thing that kept me going was a vision of surviving long enough to get the doctor on the treadmill and make him run for a while.
There are really two morals to the story.
Moral #1: Don’t take 12 aspirin a day, no matter who tells you to do it.
Moral #2: It is waaaaay easier to get admitted to a cardiac ward than it is to get discharged from it, particularly on a long weekend.