Me: My heel hurts.
My doctor: Have you tried using that ointment I told to use for pain on it?
Me: I will now.
@ner3y She told me to use it for joint pain before. I didn't do the math to think that antiinflammatory on the joints would also be antiinflammatory on my heel. Whoops.
@KimberlyHirsh When I was a child, I always wondered how the aspirin knew whether it was for a headache or for a hurt toe. How did it decide where to go?
@JoeHoffman I always had the same wonder. Did you ever get figure out the answer? It’s fascinating. Hint: blood is awesome because it goes everywhere in your body.
The story of how aspirin works is also totally fascinating.
@fgtech @JoeHoffman I read one time online that Aspirin was made by the same German pharmaceutical company that made Heroin, only after finding out it’s side effects. Reading Wikipedia now, it seems like the history is a bit more complex.
@fgtech That’s a good article. It has the feel of, “if I were talking to a biochemist this would be two lines long.” I eventually figured out that a drug is hunting for a molecule, not a place.
@odd It’s kind of weird seeing my own name pop up so often in articles about how drugs were invented. Did I go into the wrong profession?
@JoeHoffman Ooh, a good challenge!
The aspirin doesn’t “know” where to go. The blood takes it everywhere in your body and its molecular shape interrupts the inflammatory process wherever that is happening.