Leadfoot, Guys,
My 2 cents on arthritis, meloxicam, life in general… Will toss in some chemical names if anyone wants to explore further thru Wikipedia or the like...
I dunno how many types of arthritis there are but they can broadly be broken down to the rheumatoid type or the osteo arthritic complaint. Both are debilitating but the rheumatoid spins are way worse. These are auto immune responses where the body is getting maladaptive signals to destroy itself. The osteo stuff is plain old age wear and tear. Not much more fun as far as pain, but easier to treat especially if caught early on. Think most of us with the condition here are just falling apart from the osteo variety. Thank god for that if nature gave you a choice.
The rheumatoid variety can attack everything, take out your lungs, kidneys liver, not just joints. If you can suppress the body’s immune system, kinda like a chemically induced HIV, the symptoms go down with various paybacks depending on the treatment. The NSAID drugs with properties against the “bad” inflammatory cycle has a rational place in rheumatoid therapy if they work in the milder stage of progression. NSAIDs means non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs. They may be chemically dissimilar but share much of the workings of plain aspirin.
There’s good and bad inflammation going on inside us. Bad inflammation like a swollen sprained ankle is partly mediated thru a cell surface enzyme called cyclooxygenase-2 or COX-2 (just like the TV commercial says...the one with the geriatric fossil riding a skateboard beside his grandson...). Things like aspirin help inhibit down the road progression to inflammatory mediators and pain signaling by knocking out the involvement of the COX enzymes. Endpoint is some temporary relief from pain and swelling. Really cool for the short term acute crisis.
Problem is that there’s also COX-1 which maintains healthy inflammation. Aspirin is the prototype of a non specific inhibitor taking down COX-1 and COX-2 without differentiating.
The good inflammation path flogs the stomach and intestines to produce the slimy mucus coating to protect against stomach acid. It also beneficially irritates micro circulation to stay dilated and let blood flow to small and restricted areas. This is critical to the approach of controlling arthritis pain without making osteo arthritis worse because of the treatment choice.
You’ve read where a football star sprains his groin and eats a bottle of ibuprofen and wakes up needing a kidney transplant. COX-1 knocked out, blood supply to the kidney micro circulation is cut out and the kidneys rot out overnight.
Cut down the mucus covering in the alimentary track and the acid looks at the exposed underlying flesh like a piece of meat. Now you got ulcers.
Over time all the NSAIDS, even the safe ones interfere with a common route to produce and set up a balance between prostacyclin and thromboxane. Multi duty stuff dealing with clot formation and protection of the heart from peroxide, ionic, free radical damage. Means if you are on respectable doses of an NSAID, your risk for stroke is increased. Your heart is aging through time faster.
Everything in medicine is a risk versus benefit analysis. You take a pill and it does something good at the expense of the bad side effects. The doc has to question whether the benefit you get is worth the risk you are subjected to when you take his prescription to your local Walmart.
Want to continue with some thoughts on meloxicam and what you may be using as well for old age arthritis. Some warnings and common sense advice. My better half is telling me to get the hell off the internet and help her weed out the front yard.
Be back.
John