Heart Health
Ask the doctor: Can stopping aspirin cause heart problems?
Q. I've read that if you take aspirin every day, stopping it temporarily increases your chance of having a heart attack even higher than it would have been if you had never taken aspirin. Is that true? If I need to stop taking aspirin for some reason, is there a safer way to do it than stopping cold turkey?
A. What you are describing is sometimes called the rebound effect or rebound phenomenon. It occurs when a person stops taking a medication and the symptoms or problem that the medication had controlled reappear, but more severely than before the person started taking the medication. Although a rebound effect has been seen with some beta blockers and some sedatives used to treat insomnia, it is unlikely this happens with aspirin.
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