A 46-year-old woman with chronic back pain was swallowing 200 mg of naproxen twice a day – for 20 years. She came to Upstate‘s emergency room with abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

During surgery, doctors located multiple ulcers and scars within the last segment of the small intestine, called the ileum. They also found that diaphragm-like strictures had developed, “an extreme manifestation of ongoing intestinal wall damage,” Divey Manocha MD writes in October 2010 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine Research. Manocha is an internal medicine fellow in geriatrics. The woman‘s ileum was removed, and she recovered well.

Manocha, an internal medicine fellow in geriatrics, says the ileum and colon are most susceptible to deleterious effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as naproxen, ibuprofen and others. Ulcers, erosions and diaphragms that form can lead to bowel obstruction. He says problems like this are seen more frequently in the elderly, but a person‘s risk increases based on their dosage and how long they‘ve been taking it.

NSAIDS also increase the risk of bleeding.

Read this and other stories in the winter edition of Upstate Health.