{"id":4307,"date":"2015-04-20T18:31:52","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T17:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zoeharcombe.com\/?p=4307"},"modified":"2016-08-18T19:42:16","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T18:42:16","slug":"paracetamol-pain-pleasure-prozac-and-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoeharcombe.com\/2015\/04\/paracetamol-pain-pleasure-prozac-and-weight\/","title":{"rendered":"Paracetamol, Pain, Pleasure, Prozac and Weight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A couple of years ago, an active 60 something neighbour shared that she had been suffering chronic pain, but she had been prescribed something called amitriptyline and it was helping noticeably. I was curious, so I did what I always do when I hear of a drug and searched for the PIL (Patient Information Leaflet<\/a>). I was surprised to discover that amitriptyline is a pretty heavy duty anti-depressant.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t thought any more about this until a headline last week \u201cParacetamol kills feelings of pleasure as well as pain<\/a>\u201d. A comment from Professor Baldwin Way, one of the researchers, caught my eye: \u201cPeople who took paracetamol didn\u2019t feel the same highs or lows as did the people who took placebos.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever heard someone describe taking anti-depressants, they typically say: \u201cthings even out\u201d; \u201cyou don\u2019t get the lows, you don\u2019t get the highs\u201d. This study is, I believe, the first to show that one of the most common painkillers, taken by millions of people world-wide, may have a similar effect, albeit on a slight scale...<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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