Are All Aspirin Created Equal?
“I took an Aspirin when I started feeling the pain.”
Close to a decade after the Aspirin for chest pain idea hit the main-stream, more and more folks are medicated themselves at the onset of chest pain. But are all Aspirin created equal? Does chewing make any difference in the rate of absorption?
No … and yes.
A recent study out of the University of California, San Diego took 14 healthy volunteers and feed them a moderate dose of Aspirin on three separate occasions. First they were asked to swallow adult size tablets, then they were asked to chew adult sized tablets and last they were asked to chew children’s chewable Aspirin tablets. After each administration the volunteers had blood drawn at set intervals. The results were predictable, but telling. After swallowing the adult tablets, 6 of the 14 volunteers had no detectable levelsof Aspirin in their system 45 minutes post swallow.
Chewing the adult tablets gave marginally better results.
Chewing children’s Aspirin (as suspected) really is the fastest way to get the drug in to circulation.
So give them the little orange pills and remind them to chew, chew, chew. Now you can say it with confidence.
Academic Emergency Medicine, Vol. 16, No. 4, Supplement 1, April 2009
Related Articles:
EMT Charged With Patient Abandonment
Tags: aspirin, cardiac chest pain, chest pain, EMS, EMT, medications, research
Hey! Just discovered your blog, and pouring over it. Great stuff here. I’m a bit confused on this one, though (for the record, I’m a First Aid attendant, so a bit green behind the ears!).
We’re talking about Chewing Aspirin for an MI, right? I was told, perhaps six months ago, that a 350 mg adult aspirin, chewed, was the medication of choice. If you switch the Children’s Aspirin, how many do you give? What’s the dosage, and all that jazz?
Anyways, great blog. following it, now.