Dr. Aneesh Singla

I'm going to try to see what what the underlying problem is.

And I might have to go on a stronger pain medication if necessary.

Fortunately, that hasn't been the case.

But, you know, certainly that option is there if the pain isn't well controlled with over the counter medications.

Whatever happened to aspirin?

Aspirin is obviously a very commonly used medication.

It can be used to treat pain, but more commonly, it actually works.

A lot of cardiologists use it now and to help prevent heart disease because of the antiplatelet effect.

It lowers inflammation.

It lowers the function of platelets, which are the cells that actually produce blood clotting.

So what you find is that a lot of folks who have heart disease are actually on very low doses of aspirin, usually the 81 milligrams.

But as we get older and our platelets don't function as well, when we go on higher doses of aspirin, it can actually produce a side effect, which is too much bleeding.

So we sort of have to balance out the risks and the benefits.

But certainly aspirin is still around and lots of people still use it.

Well, luckily, you know, we've improved and evolved in medicine and we've come out with better ways of treating and managing pain.

So as with anything, we do change and evolve over time.

Unfortunately, that does happen in our field.

And this goes back to what we were talking about regarding expectations.

I once had a patient in my office who had come in and was in terrible pain due to widespread cancer.

And when someone is suffering from cancer, the cancer may grow into the bones, into the