Doctors recommend daily aspirin for helping to reduce/prevent the severity of heart attacks. I would like to know what this does to your chances of surviving surgery if you are injured in an emergency (gunshot, vehicle accident, etc.) I googled on the web, but got a lot of technical info which is hard to understand. Does anyone have the condensed version? How serious is the effect on the surgery? For elective surgery, doctors want you to stop aspirin as much as five days before.

This is what I found after a little googling. The important part, for this discussion, is this part:

"...Bleeding — Individuals who take aspirin regularly may notice bleeding for slightly longer than normal when they cut themselves or have a nose-bleed. This type of bleeding usually causes no significant problems..."

So, who knows, if we are talking a major type injury. I was a peace officer for 30 years, with the inherent risk of injury, and took a daily aspirin for the last ten years or so. The risk of a stroke scared me more than bleeing to death because of one aspirin a day...

On a slightly different topic.
If person taking aspirin experiences some GI side effects, another option is to take aspirin every other day, or cut the dose to 40mg/day. There is lots of research that shows that even a small dose does the trick of keeping the arteries flowing. Of course talk to your doctor before making any changes to your drug regiment.

While I'm not a doctor, I'll play one on ETS.

You may recall reading that the inflamation associated with bad gums has been found to have long-term implications with the heart. Beside the blood-thinning effect, I suspect aspirin also provides an anti-inflamatory effect that protects the heart and its valves.

Like KenK, While I'm not a Dr, I played a Medical Officer on the USCGC DRUMMOND,

the blood thinning effects of 87mg of aspirin daily is generally not going to cause a serious coagulation problem from a large open wound above what would be naturally occuring because it is a large open wound. This First Aid problem is best treated with a large or medium battle dressing.
The problem is that very few large or medium battle dressings are available to the general silly-vilian public. This is why God invented the old fashioned OB pads. I recommend everybody carry 2-4 of these pads in their FAK's. Once you apply one to a serious wound, don't remove it, just keep adding another one on top of the last one until you make it to a medical facility and/or qualified licensed Dr.

Low-dose aspirin therapy can increase clotting time, that's a fact. However the clotting time is still generally within the normal range seen in people who aren't taking aspirin. And patients are generally asked to stop taking aspirin before elective surgery. That seems logical, too, right? But last I read (a number of years ago, but not too long), there isn't really a solid block of evidence to back up that practice. Surgeons do it because "it just makes sense". Theoretically, it's possible that it could be a problem, but it's not proven and there's a good chance that it doesn't make any difference. At this time, unless you've run across some recent research that I'm not aware of, I personally wouldn't worry about it.

That's not to say that aspirin therapy doesn't have any risks at all. It does, like gastrointestinal bleeding. It's all about balancing the various risks and the potential benefits. But if your doctor has determined that in your case, you can benefit from low-dose aspirin, then I wouldn't stay up at night worrying about the baby aspirin I took and what if I needed emergency surgery, got shot, etc. Anyway, that's my take on it.

Perhaps the stopping of aspirin before elective surgery amounts to why take a risk of additional problems when you don't have to.

Well, yes, mostly, I think. However, it isn't quite that simple. There is even evidence that people who continued on aspirin had a lower risk of pulmonary embolism (blockage of a blood vessel) during hip surgeries, so by stopping your aspirin, an argument can be made that although you're lowering your risk of bleeding, you're actually increasing your risk of an embolism. Well, that's a controversial interpretation of research that came out around 2000. I don't know what has happened since then.

Just a standard caveat, but if you're on aspirin and really curious about, it would be best to ask your doctor about it. As others have said, we're not doctors--we just play one on ETS. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I did a bit of an experiment a while ago to see how aspirin and a couple other "heart healthy" OTC items would affect me. I was taking the standard enteric coated aspirin dose of 325 mg/day, along with a vitamin E supplement, an Omega 3/Omega 6 supplement, and colloidal mineral supplements. After 7 days of this therapy, I started having nose bleeds every time I blew my nose, I experienced rectal bleeding (a bit alarming that) and I noticed that abrasions and cuts would ooze a bit longer. My conclusion is that if you are taking these items, a therapeutic cardiovascular dose is considerably lower than the maximum dose recommended.

I've thought about that as well; "what's going to happen if I get in a wreck and I've taken aspirin? Am I going to be able to control the bleeding?"

Life is a risk management exercise.

My risk of cardiac arrest / stroke is getting higher each day I'm alive.

I've only been in a couple of fender benders (mostly when I was learning to drive)

So, I take my aspirin and drive real carefully and avoid getting shot. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />