All posts by ackersch

Did you know you can get a headache from taking too many painkillers? This chronic condition is called ‘medication overuse headache’, and it can develop when you have been taking painkillers, such as aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen frequently for three months or longer.

Around 2% of adults get headaches from overusing painkillers and it is five times more common in women than men. People who suffer from migraine or tension headache, or those who are treating pain symptoms regularly, are most likely to be affected.

So, if you are taking painkillers frequently, and getting headaches on 15 or more days a month, speak to your pharmacist or GP. You will probably be advised to stop taking the over-used medicine. Unfortunately, your headache symptoms are likely to get worse before they improve, as it can take between two to ten days for the medicines to completely clear your system.

After that, if medication overuse was the only cause of your headache, you should be in the clear!

Many pharmacies now offer healthy living and wellbeing services as the NHS focusses on tackling an epidemic of largely preventable long term diseases. After all, it makes little sense for the NHS to spend more on stapling stomachs and gastric band operations than it does on effective obesity prevention programmes.

‘We may be living longer, but we risk spending many of these extra years in poor health unless we do a better job of tackling major risks such as obesity, poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption,’ Public Health England warned last month in its latest 5 year plan.

Among its seven health priorities are tackling obesity (particularly among children); reducing smoking (and stopping children starting); reducing harmful drinking; reducing the risk of dementia; and tackling the growth in antimicrobial resistance. So come and have a chat with us. You may be surprised at how we can help.

There has been a lot in the news recently about decriminalising the use cannabis, so a major review on the effects of the drug in the scientific journal Addiction should help inform debate.

Cannabis does not produce fatal overdoses, the review says, but 1 in 10 of regular users will develop a dependence syndrome (this rises to 1 in 6 among those who start using it in adolescence).

Regular use that starts in the teens and continues into young adulthood appears to produce ‘intellectual impairment’. It approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia or reporting psychotic symptoms in adulthood.
Regular cannabis smokers also have a higher risk of developing chronic bronchitis. No surprise there!

Did you know you can get a headache from taking too many painkillers? This chronic condition is called ‘medication overuse headache’, and it can develop when you have been taking painkillers, such as aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen frequently for three months or longer.

Around 2% of adults get headaches from overusing painkillers and it is five times more common in women than men. People who suffer from migraine or tension headache, or those who are treating pain symptoms regularly, are most likely to be affected.

So, if you are taking painkillers frequently, and getting headaches on 15 or more days a month, speak to your pharmacist or GP. You will probably be advised to stop taking the over-used medicine. Unfortunately, your headache symptoms are likely to get worse before they improve, as it can take between two to ten days for the medicines to completely clear your system.

After that, if medication overuse was the only cause of your headache, you should be in the clear!

Statins can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in people who don’t have it now, but might develop it in the future. The most common forms of CVD are coronary heart disease (angina or a heart attack) and stroke (including transient ischaemic attack or TIA, sometimes called a ‘mini stroke’).

NICE, the government body which advises on the effective use of medicines, recently changed its guidance on statins to recommend that doctors should offer a statin to anyone who has a 10% or greater risk of developing CVD over the next 10 years.

If you are over 50 you could well fall into this group.
To help you decide whether a statin is the right thing for you NICE has developed a patient decision aid to give you information about the pros and cons of taking a statin.

The decision aid is designed for you to work through with your pharmacist or GP. If you are not sure what your CHD risk is, ask your pharmacist for advice.

A sore throat is not usually a serious condition and often gets better on its own in three to seven days.

To relieve the symptoms painkillers such as paracetamol and throat lozenges are usually recommended. Our pharmacy can offer a variety of such products.

To help prevent irritation of the throat avoid food or drink that is too hot. Stick to cool, soft food and drink cool or warm liquids. Regularly gargling with a mouthwash of warm, salty water may help reduce swelling or pain.

Antibiotics are not recommended for treating sore throats because the infection is usually caused by a virus, not by bacteria. Even if your sore throat is caused by bacteria, antibiotics have very little effect on the severity of the symptoms and how long they last.

You should see your GP if you have persistent symptoms that are not responding to self-treatment, or if you are at risk of developing complications – if you have a weakened immune system, for example. Ask you pharmacist if you are not sure.

Vitamin D is important for keeping bones and teeth healthy. A lack of the vitamin can lead to deformities such as rickets in children, and a condition known as osteomalacia in adults which causes pain and tenderness.

In England, around a fifth of adults and a sixth of children – around 10 million people –may have low vitamin D status. This is partly because the main source for vitamin D is from natural sunlight, and from mid-October to the beginning of April there is no sunlight at the correct wavelength for skin to create vitamin D.

Certain groups of people in the UK are also more likely to have lack of vitamin D. These include pregnant women, children and older adults. People with darker skin or who cover up when outdoors are also at risk of having low vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D is found in foods such as oily fish and fortified breakfast cereals, but if you think are missing out you can always buy a vitamin D supplement from your pharmacy. Ask your pharmacist for advice on the dose – adults should not exceed 0.025mg a day.

September was World Alzheimer’s Month and a report released to mark the event points out that some of the ‘modern’ diseases which plague today’s population, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, could be linked to an increased risk of dementia in later life.

A person with diabetes, for example, has a 50% higher risk of developing dementia, according to the report. Studies in the elderly have also shown a link between smoking and dementia. While risk is similar between ex-smokers and people who have never smoked, those who continue to smoke are at much higher risk of dementia.

It is important, says the report, to ‘preserve brain health during mid-life’ as people who enter old age with well-developed, healthy brains have a reduced chance of developing dementia. The changes in the brain responsible for dementia can begin decades before symptoms appear, so, like saving into your pension fund, it is never too soon to start looking after your health. A visit to the pharmacy for advice would be a good start.

If you have diabetes, you are being encouraged to ‘TALK hypos’ with your pharmacist or GP as part of a campaign supported by insulin manufacturer Novo Nordisk and Diabetes UK. The campaign, which coincides with Hypo Awareness Week (Sept 29-Oct 5), is designed to help people recognise and manage hypoglycaemia, one of the most common complications of diabetes.

TALK is a quick reminder of the important points:

• THINK: do you know what a hypo is? Do you suffer from hypos?
• ASK: your doctor or pharmacist about hypos and discuss them when you next speak to them
• LEARN: what can be done to better manage your hypos – this could be changes to lifestyle, as well as treatment options
• KEEP: track of your hypos so that you are well prepared when you talk to your doctor or pharmacist.

If people often experience hypos and are reluctant to sort them out, there can be a temptation to \’self-treat\’ by making changes to their usual medicines routine. This, in turn, can result in poor diabetes control and related complications. So, if you have diabetes, then remember to TALK…

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has not gone away. By mid-September the virus had killed over 2,600 people in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

It is the biggest outbreak in the past 40 years, and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that if current trends continue, the number of cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone could exceed 550,000 by January.

So should you be worried?

Well, yes, if you have a family member or friend who is visiting from West Africa and they develop a headache or fever – both are symptoms of Ebola – soon after flying back. However, Public Health England, the government body that monitors infectious diseases, says the risk of an Ebola outbreak occurring in the UK remains ‘very low’.