I’m Lovin My Naproxen

As I mentioned before, I’ve been having a major issue with my knee as of late. It’s been very difficult to sleep, sit, walk, or just about anything that a leg is a useful contributor to. My NSAID treatment of choice has been aspirin, as I’ve long found it to be a good general analgesic and anti-inflammatory. Clearly it hasn’t been working well, if at all. This morning I decided to go down a slightly different path and chose a different NSAID.

The naproxen hit I got from my Aleve liquid gels has been a very welcome relief. While it took a few hours for it to really kick in (which is typical), the reduction in pain, and presumably inflammation, has been profound. While my knee is still sore, it is much more mobile. I can bend it on its own without any manual or gravitational assistance, which hasn’t been the case these past couple of days.

See, here’s the thing. When I was learning my physical training stuff, naproxen wasn’t really on the radar, so I didn’t get much information as to its efficacy. The thing that has always made me leary is that 12-hour dose thing. I mean, what if it doesn’t work? Twelve hours when you’re wanting relief can be a very long time. Slowly, I’ve been warming up to this drug. Nothing works as well on my back when it goes south on me. I’m starting to think that it might be near or at the top of my list with significant knee pain as well. Yeah, it does have some annoying but rare side-effects, but I’ve gotten to an age where I’ll trade comfort for a few years of enduring.

So, the day which started out with a great deal of pain and not a lot to look forward to has blossomed into a day where the only thing really keeping me inside are the scattered showers we are having. Shoot, even my limp is now almost gone. While I can’t recommend this treatment to others, not being a doctor or anything, I can say that it definitely goes in my toolbox as an effective way for me to self-medicate when I’m having a significant joint inflamation. What a difference.