Low Dose Asprins and GCA

[Berylholley]

I have read an article that Nesher and colleagues have reported that low dose asprins can help with GCA side effects. As we know they do cause stomach irritation but I decided to try them as and when my temporal problems occurred and it seemed to work. Also Sunday's Daily Mail had a similar artical re a woman curing Cancer. I am down to 9mg pred now and hoping.

[SnazzyD]

Interesting. I gave it a wide berth because of its anti-clotting effect and didn’t want to add it to Pred that already made me prone to bleeding.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Used to be that 75mg aspirin was prescribed alongside Pred for GCA: that advice seems to have altered.

As I was already on that dose pre GCA, pre Pred, cannot comment on whether in made any difference or not!

[PMRpro Ambassador]

On the basis of that (and other) work, which is now 14 years old, it was recommended for some years that low dose aspirin be added to the armoury for GCA on the grounds it would reduce the likelihood of clotting - much the same as for stroke and heart attack patients. In the latest process of revising the Guidelines for management of GCA it has been decided to drop the recommendation as the risks associated with even low dose aspirin are felt to outweigh the potential advantages. As Snazzy says - many people find they bleed more when on pred without adding aspirin to the mix.

[Nuff1 in reply to PMRpro]

OH is on low dose aspirin - prescribed by GP when biopsy confirmed GCA. Are the Guidelines, for which you mention the latest revision, available to Jo Public or GPs please?

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Nuff1]

Not available to anybody yet! They are still messing about sending them backwards and forwards for approval ...

There is a PPT presentation about them from Prof Dasgupta at the 2016 Glasgow conference here:

keepandshare.com/doc/819279...

Aspirin is mentioned in Recommendation 9 about 5 pages from the end.

[Nuff1 in reply to PMRpro]

Thankyou

[Berylholley in reply to PMRpro]

Thank you PMRpro for helping me out there I just copied a snippet to my device. I am still concerned that I had an MRI Scan last November on neck and brain and they never found any evidence of my Temporal Arteries symptoms or carotid artery when it was so sore.

[Janstr in reply to PMRpro]

I have been meaning to thank you PMRpro for sending me this link earlier. I sent it to my GP who agreed I should come off the low dose aspirin but suggested I should verify with my Rheumotologist. He said there were differing opinions about it, & that I could come off it if I wanted to. So I'm now off the aspirin as well as omezaprole which was I on because of possible aspirin side effects, so 2 fewer drugs. Fantastic & thanks again.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Janstr]

The habit of giving a drug and then another drug and then another drug to deal with the potential side effects is appalling I think.

Just being on 3 different medications is a risk factor for all sorts of things - especially falls - and if you can get away with 1 of a set it is so much better. They don't do trials of combining multiple drugs to see what the interations are and while 2 drugs may interact in one way, adding another may change that entirely. So enteric coated pred may avoid the need for a PPI, no aspirin reduce the bleeding risk etc etc. I look at my dosette box and it scares me witless at times even though it is only 5 different drugs in 4 batches for the day! And various doctors want to add more: rheumy wanted to add methotrexate, cardio wants to add a statin. So far I have resisted the statin and tried the mtx which was so awful the rheumy accepted a no without argument!