181–190 of 613 posts
I've recently had to deal with the medical profession a lot more than in the past and I'm finding this sort of thing everywhere. OTC medicines that by current standards would not be made OTC, surgeries that are extremely common but have never had quality randomized trials, official sounding diagnoses that on inspection are actually defined as "we have no idea", lack of consensus about how to treat some of the most co…
I've recently had to deal with the medical profession a lot more than in the past and I'm finding this sort of thing everywhere. OTC medicines that by current standards would not be made OTC, surgeries that are extremely common but have never had quality randomized trials, official sounding diagnoses that on inspection are actually defined as "we have no idea", lack of consensus about how to treat some of the most co…
> OTC medicines that by current standards would not be made OTC Acetaminophen would almost certainly be in this category, if it could even get FDA approval at all. The effective dose is dangerously close to a toxic dose that causes liver damage, and not comfortably-far from the LD50. The only reasons acetaminophen is OTC is that it's been informally grandfathered in, makes an absolute fortune for pharmaceutical compa…
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002598.htm
Common dosage forms and strengths:
Suppository: 120 mg, 125 mg, 325 mg, 650 mg Chewable tablets: 80 mg Junior tablets: 160 mg Regular strength: 325 mg Extra strength: 500 mg Liquid: 160 mg/teaspoon (5 milliliters) Drops: 100 mg/mL, 120 mg/2.5 mL Adults should not take more than 3,000 mg of single-ingredient acetaminophen a day. You should take less if you are over 65 years old. Taking more, especially 7,000 mg or more, can lead to a severe overdose problems. If you have liver or kidney disease, you should discuss the use of this drug with your health care provider.
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> With explanation in abstract that its easier to buy meth than pseudoephedrine. People may laugh at this, as they should since it is an absurd situation, but this isn't entirely wrong. Neither my wife or I drive and during the pandemic she gave up her license after getting an appointment at the DOL was difficult. Both of us carry US passport cards as our ID. This has resulted in several situations where we've been t…
Gotta chime in on this. Seattle (in general a great place) has some pretty horrible things re: purchasing alcohol. Idiot/mis-placed store/bar-workers who only want a state ID. My U.S. passport=NO. My U.N. passport=NO. Freakin' weird. Edit: I worked at Boeing for eight years, very often in a sec/reserved area. My passport was good there. Buying booze down the street from [Boeing] plant 2, no.
I wouldn't blame a regular store clerk for not knowing what a UN Lassiez-Passier is, especially since it doesn't have the word "passport" in the name. But a passport, especially one from their own country, definitely ought to be recognized.
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"Data from 7 crossover studies involving a total of 113 subjects were reanalyzed and then pooled for meta-analysis" This is a huge red flag - I've read too many of Derek Lowe's blog posts to take that kind of study very seriously as medical advice. Much more promising leads than this have utterly bombed in clinical trials, it happens all the time.
Read the whole abstract. They showed which studies reached statistical significance on their own. You could just read those studies and ignore the meta-analyses if you want. I honestly don't understand this current trend of assuming meta-analyses are inherently incorrect and cherry-picking the worst study as the source of the truth.
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But why get one? A passport/passport card is a _better_ ID document in almost every way. State non-motorist IDs should really cease to exist and we should increase access to passport cards
>State non-motorist IDs should really cease to exist State non-motorist IDs are some of the only IDs available to non-citizens who live in the US and don't drive
I've recently had to deal with the medical profession a lot more than in the past and I'm finding this sort of thing everywhere. OTC medicines that by current standards would not be made OTC, surgeries that are extremely common but have never had quality randomized trials, official sounding diagnoses that on inspection are actually defined as "we have no idea", lack of consensus about how to treat some of the most co…
> OTC medicines that by current standards would not be made OTC Acetaminophen would almost certainly be in this category, if it could even get FDA approval at all. The effective dose is dangerously close to a toxic dose that causes liver damage, and not comfortably-far from the LD50. The only reasons acetaminophen is OTC is that it's been informally grandfathered in, makes an absolute fortune for pharmaceutical compa…
this is the big one. Phenyl-epinephrine doesn't work at all, it's consistently failed to outperform placebo, and the only reason it's on the market is because the FDA doesn't like pseudo-ephedrine (sudafed) because it can be used as a precursor for meth. Same reason they've required individual blister packs for sudafed (if only there was some illicit drug which gave you the focus and drive to perform repetitive tasks for hours on end...)
Same thing for imodium. The reason all of a sudden it's in blister packs? People found a way to abuse it and the FDA is going to ruin it for the rest of us.
In the case of acetaminophen, the FDA actively uses it as a poison to "discourage" addicts from taking large doses of painkillers or cough syrup. The point is explicitly that if you take too much, you'll burn out your liver, the FDA is actively inserting poison into the medicine to "discourage abuse".
In all of these cases, the common factor is that it makes things much more annoying or even dangerous/lethal for average people, while addicts are completely unaffected. No opiate addict in the world is going to get clean because of individual pill blister packaging. Meth addicts will just pop some pills and churn through the sudafed blister packaging, etc.
I am waiting for the other shoe to drop on imodium, now that the FDA is targeting it, it can't be too long until it's behind the counter or pulled entirely. And as someone who (TMI warning) suffers from what I'd term as moderately frequent IBS (never diagnosed but maybe I should) that's really going to suck for me.
The FDA is simply an instrument of drug-war policy, they're not oriented towards patient care and outcomes at all.
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In my experiences with old NyQuil it was enough to make you drowsier. And getting to sleep was the primary objective of NyQuil. Back in my college days you could replicate it with one 30mg Sudafed and a shot of Jagermeister. =)
> NyQuil I don't know about this medication in particular (since I don't live in the US), but I see it contains DXM (dextromethorphan), which is a dissociative (such as ex. ketamine), which probably causes the effects you described. I'm seeing it also contains acetaminophen, which probably makes it hard on your kidneys, if you take too much, so that is probably why people don't abuse it more (I guess or hope).
One could buy generic "tussin DM" (or pill form of dextro), mucinex (for guafenasin), and benadryl (or generic diphenylhydramine) to get the same usefulness that a bottle of liquid NyQuil has.
My drug of choice for colds is NyQuil. It's always been great for opening up my nasal passages enough to let me breathe easily and then knocking me the fuck out so I could sleep off most of the cold. I remember several years ago when all of a sudden NyQuil stopped doing anything useful. I had no idea why but I directly observed that it was like it had been replaced with a non-functioning placebo. Only a couple years…
[0] Careful, you can easily form an "addiction" to this med.
The lack of availability of proper pseudoephedrine in USA led to situation where there are papers describing how to turn methamphetamine into pseudoephedrine, not the other way around. With explanation in abstract that its easier to buy meth than pseudoephedrine.
Pseudoephedrine is still available -behind the counter-. You literally just have to ask the pharmacist for it. Let’s not turn grad students having a laugh into an actual statement on public policy.
Every time you buy the stuff from the pharmacist, they're logging the purchase in a national DB and you're signing an acknowledgement that it's a huge felony to go beyond the limit. But they never tell you where you are vs the limit, and the limits aren't clearly stated. End result: chilling effect.
My mom timed her purchases incorrectly (family of 5 with mom shopping for all at the time) and went past the limit. After that she was flagged and had to have an actual doctor's prescription in order to purchase pseudoephedrine for 6-12 months. That is a HUGE hurdle for most people, and doctors don't want to see people who have cold symptoms. Heck, I was turned away from a CVS Minute Clinic recently because I had COVID like symptoms in the last 7 days. As in refused to see me, even though I had recently tested negative for COVID and had a fever + persistent cough.
My drug of choice for colds is NyQuil. It's always been great for opening up my nasal passages enough to let me breathe easily and then knocking me the fuck out so I could sleep off most of the cold. I remember several years ago when all of a sudden NyQuil stopped doing anything useful. I had no idea why but I directly observed that it was like it had been replaced with a non-functioning placebo. Only a couple years…
American law is so disjointed. On one hand, we're decriminalizing drugs. Pot is widely legal now. Other states are allowing mushrooms and LSD. Cocaine and heroin are not legal, but have all but been decriminalized on the West Coast. Meanwhile it's harder than ever to get pain killers from your doctor, even when you have a demonstrated need for them. Same with ephedrine -- a very useful drug -- it's very difficult to…
Citation needed. Never heard this before now. Or is this just some California thing?