Data collected by Jiri Dvorak
The shocking truth about painkiller abuse
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buy canada goose jacket What if that same little white pill could ease the ache of your post match recovery, too? Better yet, what if that pill was apparently safe and perfectly legal? Not only that, but available over the counter at all good chemists, corner shops and even supermarkets, priced at35p forapacket of 16. Well, you’d takeit,wouldn’t you? buy canada goose jacket
canada goose coats Of course you would. And, of course, you do. buy canada goose jacket In recent years, paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin have become as much a part uk canada goose outlet of a sportsman’s kit canada goose coats on sale bag as caffeine gels and post workout protein shakes. It’s an industry that’s now worth 591 million to the UK economy and their use is so common it’s not so much an epidemic as it is endemic. canada goose coats
This year’s BBC State of Sport survey revealed that about two thirds of amateur athletes take non prescription anti inflammatories, either to enable them to perform at the best of their ability, or to support their recovery.
buy canada goose jacket cheap But could it be that these pills cheaper than bottled water and easier to come by are not the painkilling panaceas we take them to be? And, by taking them even on a weekly basis, could you be doing your body more harm than good? Recent research suggests we have a problem on our hands a very big problem. buy canada goose jacket cheap
canada goose store So perhaps the ultimate question is this: when the short term rewards for popping painkillers are so great, how do you begin to reconcile a genuine concern for your future welfare with the Canada Goose Online desire for instantrelief? canada goose store
The higher up the www.picframer.ca sporting ladder you climb, the bigger the rewards, and thus the greater the pressure on athletes to play without pain. From football to cycling, rugby to athletics, painkiller abuse is rife. Take golfing legend Tiger Woods, who was recently ordered to attend rehab after being caught driving dangerously while under the influence of Canada Goose sale five Canada Goose Parka separate painkillers. Or Daniel Awde who, in a bid to qualify for the London 2012 Olympics, was taking up canada goose store to 14 tablets a day to mask the pain of a knee injury. “Within the athletics community it was a running joke that a lot of athletes were having ibuprofen for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he would later tell the BBC. Now experts are concerned about the long term impact of this self medication. Data collected by Jiri Dvorak, the former chief medical officer at FIFA, showed that half the footballers in FIFA tournaments between 1998 and 2014 had been regularly using non prescription painkillers. This, said Dvorak, was accepted as “part of the game” a part that could prove fatal.
As a key member of England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup winning side, former flanker Lewis ‘Mad Dog’ Moody took more painkillers during his 16 year career than he Canada Goose online cares to remember. In rugby, more canada goose factory sale than most sports, the opportunity for injury is high, and you don’t acquire a nickname like Mad Dog without putting your body on the line. “It was just the norm,” cheap canada goose uk he says. “Painkillers and anti inflammatories were always available post training and post match. When you come into a sport straight out of school, if the normal course of action is to take canada goose clearance sale paracetamol and anti inflamms if you’ve been concussed, if you have a canada goose tweaked hamstring you do as you’re told.”
Canada Goose online In hindsight, Moody can see that his painkiller use had turned into canada goose clearance abuse. At the time, he acknowledges, medical staff at club and national sides would warn players about the dangers of overuse. But these were athletes in the prime of their careers, playing for the highest sporting stakes. Cheap canada goose Predictably, words of warning fell on deaf ears. “Back then, there was amore flippant approach to canada goose black friday sale how you take painkillers. I remember being warned about the effects of certain drugs. But as a young man who thinks he’s invincible, and in a macho sport, you’d do anything to be fit you don’t want to miss out and give someone else the opportunity [to play] and possibly lose your canada goose uk shop spot. You’d do whatever it took.” Canada Goose online
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canada goose clearance sale The palpable embarrassment in Moody’s voice turns to disbelief as he considers the harm he inflicted upon himself. “When you look back it’s insanity, because the amount of impact those anti inflamms have on your colon and the lining of your stomach is significant.” Moody isn’t talking in generalities here; he’s speaking from experience. canada goose clearance sale
cheap Canada Goose It was in 2005, with the Lions tour to New Zealand a matter of months away, that the symptoms Canada Goose Outlet started: unbearable stomach cramps, a sudden, desperate need to buy canada goose jacket cheap empty his bowels, and a severe loss of blood every time he did so. The diagnosis was Canada Goose Jackets clear: Moody had developed ulcerative colitis, where painful ulcers develop in the bowels. Its onset, he maintains, was a direct result of his over the top use of over the counter pain relief. To cope, Moody initially dealt with it the only way he knew how: he took more meds. cheap Canada Goose
In 2007, in the build up to the Rugby World Cup in France, Moody reached peak painkiller, taking drugs midweek to get through training, uk canada goose then before and after matches on the weekends. Playing through the pain, he was one of the stars of the World Cup finals, but his body was broken. It was only after deciding to go cold turkey on all forms of medication that the symptoms of his colitis began to clear up. These days, five years into his retirement, he is symptom free.
canada goose clearance It took a career threatening illnessfor Moody to wake up to the dangers that he and his teammates had been exposing themselves to. And that’s hardly surprising. After all, how could something sold for pennies in every chemist in Britain with the express purpose of making you well actually be bad for you? canada goose clearance
It’s tempting to dismiss Moody’s example as an extreme case. As for the likes of Tiger Woods and Daniel Awde, well, they were, by their own admissions, addicted. They craved painkillers. You, on the other hand, you’re canadian goose jacket different isn’t that right? You just take them as and when they’re needed, in smaller doses. Sadly, you’re probably wrong. The chances are that the way you’re using painkillers particularly popular anti inflammatories such as ibuprofen is all wrong.
Canada Goose Outlet “I’m a sports physician, so my major cohort of patients is the recreational athlete,” says canada goose uk outlet Dr Ajai Seth, a consultant atthe Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. “Generally, people have no real understanding of how anti inflammatories work. I see a lot of patients with stress injuries and stress fractures. A lot of the time this can be put down to poor diet or over training, but the vast majority of the time it’s because they take a fair amount of anti inflammatories as well.” In other words, far from aiding recovery, anti inflammatories are often responsible for exacerbating injuries. Canada Goose Outlet
The key issue, says Seth, is ignorance. “Non steroidal anti inflammatories block a substance called prostaglandin, which produces inflammation in the body. Inflammation your body needs in order to heal. So, let’s say you’re playing tennis and you sprain your ankle. It becomes swollen because of prostaglandin.” So, what do you do about it? You pop a couple of Nurofen and let the swelling go down. Then pop acouple more when you get home to take the edge off the pain, until you’re back on court a week later.
This, says Seth, is where we’re essentially misunderstanding the role of inflammation. “What prostaglandin does is, firstly, stop you from using your ankle because it’s painful. In this respect, pain is a protective mechanism.” In other words, Canada Goose Coats On Sale if you can’t put weight on it you can’t make the injury worse.
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Canada Goose Parka But that’s just the half of it. “Secondly, prostaglandin helps the tissues heal. When they heal they become stronger. But if you’re canada goose coats doing a half marathon, say, and you take a couple of ibuprofen before you run, you’re not letting your bone adapt. Do that over a long period of time, and you put yourself at higher cheap Canada Goose risk of injury.” Canada Goose Parka
It gets worse. “Anti inflammatories affect lots of systems within your body,” says Seth. “It’s not just the bones and ligaments; taken over a long period, they can increase your risk of heart attack, kidney damage and bowel problems.”
Canada Goose sale Of course, most people are dangerously, albeit understandably, unaware of these risks. If a doctor prescribes you a course of medication, you’re told how to take it. You might even read the small print about the potential side effects. But when it comes to over the counter painkillers, it’s unlikely the server behind the chemist’s counter is going to talk you through the recommended dosage. That’s problematic because the less we understand about the drugs we’re taking, the more we’ll continue to take them. Canada Goose sale
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