Painkillers Affecting Muscle Growth?

I work out 3 days a week and either jog or swim on the other days, and they all make me mildly sore all week long. I’m trying to stay off any kind of medication as much as I can for obvious reasons but sometimes the muscle pain can get slightly debilitating, especially when I’m trying to turn the steering wheel and a sudden sore in my arm can affect the maneuveur and potentially endanger myself.

I’m entertaining the idea of using some OTC painkillers but I don’t know if doing so would affect muscle growth or make me dependent or something else. Any tip would be appreciated. Thanks.

You can go with an NSAID like Ibuprofen as needed I wouldnt live on them. If the allow you to recover and take away inflammation etc allowing a greater workout then that will beat out any muscle growth restriction., There are some HUGE strong SOB’s that live on pain meds.

Just steer clear of Tylenol that shits poison literally
Take then as needed for pain and Inflammation

Phill

I don’t know whether it’s established in literature, but I strongly suspect that NSAID painkillers do affect muscle growth. Inflammation plays a central role in muscle repair, so it’s reasonable to infer that suppressing inflammation might inhibit growth. Also, it has already been proven that NSAIDs affect bone and tendon remodeling, increasing healing time.

If you have to use painkillers, I suggest sticking to aspirin because it appears not to inhibit tissue synthesis as much as ibuprofen and naproxen. You could also try acetaminophen (Tylenol), but that’s not an anti-inflammatory drug so I don’t know if it would do anything for your muscle soreness.

[quote]belligerent wrote:
I don’t know whether it’s established in literature, but I strongly suspect that NSAID painkillers do affect muscle growth. Inflammation plays a central role in muscle repair, so it’s reasonable to infer that suppressing inflammation might inhibit growth. Also, it has already been proven that NSAIDs affect bone and tendon remodeling, increasing healing time. [/quote]

This sounds reasonable to me, although I’m also curious what evidence exists in the literature. I would also think that the blood thinning effects of aspirin would be beneficial to promoting blood flow (and thus nutrients) to the muscles as well.

There is litterature that NSAIDs can affect muscle growth through reduction in inflammation at least in vitro. (A few articles on this address this and its related literature)

Tylenol (acetaminophen) has minimal effects on inflammation and should not do what NSAIDs might do for muscle growth. However you can’t take more than 4 grams a day unless you want to risk liver damage.

Aspirin would in all likelihood have no benefits in terms of blood flow to the muscle and would probably act more to restrict growth through its anti-inflammatory effects.

Hope this helps,
AlexH

Thanks for the info everyone