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I Once Took Advil to Mask An Injury. Here’s Why I Wouldn’t Do It Again.
There are lines we don’t cross, not only for health, but out of principle
There has been a recent trend of running influencers advocating a household, over-the-counter drug to help them with their running: Advil. I am not going to out any influencers because there are some I follow and highly respect. But according to Jessy Carveth at the Marathon Handbook, there has been a surge of running influencers promoting Advil in recent weeks, with some female running influencers talking about how Advil helps them with their menstrual cycles in advertising the product, while others talked about how Advil more generally helps them through their pain.
This seemed to indicate that Advil was paying many running influencers on social media to promote their product, which didn’t have the same disclosure of risks as TV commercials, per se.
And then came the backlash: taking Advil to run is dangerous. It can cause kidney failure, gastrointestinal issues and dehydration. Also, pain is a signal that something is wrong and needs to be addressed, often right away, instead of something to be subdued and ignored. It’s a band-aid that causes you to not treat your injury or recover the right way and can make the injury much worse.
