Medication Effectiveness Depends on Body Position

Physical Therapist

A recent study conducted at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland discovered that it matters what position your body is in to make medicine more effective. Because stomachs are bean-shaped, for medication to dissolve faster, it must land in the deepest part of the stomach. Researchers found out that if you want your medication to kick in as fast as possible, you need to lie down on your right side. Researchers said this information can also be applied to food. If you are lying down on your right side, your food will be in the deepest part of your stomach, allowing it to be digested quicker. They found in their study that standing up or lying flat on your back caused medication to take upwards of twenty-five minutes to be digested. Lying on your left side (and thus the shallowest part of the human bean-shaped stomach) can take over an hour and a half to dissolve medication or digest food. That’s a huge difference!

Medication for Pain

If you are constantly taking medication for pain — whether over the counter medication or prescribed medication — try putting this new research into practice! Take your medication and lay down on your right side. You should start feeling the effects much sooner!

However, there is also another way around medication taking too long to kick in…physical therapy! By visiting a physical therapist weekly, you can build up muscle strength and stamina which will allow you to overcome quite a few pain points such as:

• Back pain
• Shoulder pain
• Hip pain
• Neck pain
• And more!

Plus, it can work for those of you taking prescription medications or those of you taking over the counter medications. Physical therapy is not the solution for everyone, but if you are tired of popping pills every time you are hurting (and now lying down on your right side to get those meds to kick in much faster!), then it’s time to contact a physical therapist for help.

 What is PT?

Physical therapy — or PT for short — is the use of exercises and stretches to strengthen the body’s weak points. If you constantly experience shoulder pain, then your body might be trying to tell you something! It could be that your arm is doing too much, unsupported, and you’re not working your muscles properly in your shoulder. Or, it could be that you are straining your back somehow…maybe by sitting in a weird position at work everyday without noticing.

Physical therapy can help overcome this pain; working with a physical therapist, you can build up arm strength to lessen your pain or you can do back strengthening exercises that help your posture and get rid of that shoulder pain completely.

It’s a holistic approach to helping the body in a natural way versus constantly taking medications and making sure that you are lying on the correct side of the body for those to take effect faster; it’s not just for those who have been injured in an accident or for start athletes.

Contact a physical therapist Baltimore, MD today at LeMoine Physical Therapy to schedule an appointment and discover if you can work towards a future where you no longer have to take medication for pain.