Have you ever had a headache? Chances are you have; almost all of us do once in a while. And chances are you took some kind of medicine to ease your headache. That medicine was most likely a relative of aspirin. You may also have taken aspirin or its relatives for other problems, like inflammation (swelling of joints or other parts of the body) or fever. But did you know that about 80 BILLION aspirin tablets …showed first 75 words of 1649 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1649 total…and fever, but they seem to have less of an effect on platelets than aspirin does (these medicines are called the non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, because they decrease swelling but they aren't steroids, which are the most potent antiinflammatory chemicals we have). Another family of medicines related to aspirin includes acetaminophen (or Tylenol), which decreases fevers and pain, but it doesn't affect either swelling or your stomach as much as the true NSAIDs do.