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Digestive Health

I’m taking an herbal medicine. Can I take an NSAID?

Summary & Participants

An expert explains how NSAIDs in herbal medicines may contribute to the risk of GI or Gastrointestinal Side Effects from aspirin and other NSAIDs. NSAIDs include ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), naproxen (Aleve) and ketoprofen (Orudis, Oruvail).

Medically Reviewed On: July 21, 2009

Webcast Transcript

Q: I’m taking an herbal medicine. Can I take an NSAID?

BYRON CRYER, MD: NSAIDs are available in multiple forms. Clearly, they’re available in prescribed medicines and over-the-counter medicines, but one of the unrecognized forms in which we find NSAIDs are in dietary supplements and herbal medicines. Several of those medicines contain NSAID-like substances, and so what a person does when they combine their herbal medicine or their dietary supplement along with another NSAID is they’ve increased the risk of a gastrointestinal problem because they’ve increased their overall dose of NSAID. So it’s important for patients to recognize that dietary supplements and herbal medicines are also medicines that should be discussed with their physician when they’re discussing the list of medicines that they’re on, because some of those herbal products can have an NSAID.