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Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

asteriskmag.com

21–30 of 504 posts

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#22

I've known people who've overdosed on Tylenol and died. I'm not saying that ibuprofen won't give you acid reflux and won't damage your kidneys, but due to I tend to take a lot of ibuprofen and also for take another medication that constricts my arteries and for get a lot of blood/urine work done... and my kidney function is good and despite everything I'm generally healthy. So I would say, like many things, what medi…

Just don't take it on an empty stomach.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#25
post #17

Really lovely article. In paramedicine we usually treat 10g of acetaminophen in a 24-hour window as a potentially fatal overdose. That's also why the law in Australia was changed to require acetaminophen to come in blister packs (harder to get each pill out) of no more than 16. At 500 mg, that only gets you up to 8 g if you eat the whole thing, which is still hopefully non-fatal. I always thought a simple over-the-co…

You can still die if you take your idiot-proof Aussie blister packs with alcohol. So it's more an inefficient use of cabinet space.

You can overdose on water too, they haven't banned 5-gallon jugs (yet).

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#26
post #17

Really lovely article. In paramedicine we usually treat 10g of acetaminophen in a 24-hour window as a potentially fatal overdose. That's also why the law in Australia was changed to require acetaminophen to come in blister packs (harder to get each pill out) of no more than 16. At 500 mg, that only gets you up to 8 g if you eat the whole thing, which is still hopefully non-fatal. I always thought a simple over-the-co…

When was this changed?

I arrived in Aus in 2021 and was amazed to be able to buy a pack of 40+, coming from the UK where the limit had been in place for some years.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#27
post #17

Really lovely article. In paramedicine we usually treat 10g of acetaminophen in a 24-hour window as a potentially fatal overdose. That's also why the law in Australia was changed to require acetaminophen to come in blister packs (harder to get each pill out) of no more than 16. At 500 mg, that only gets you up to 8 g if you eat the whole thing, which is still hopefully non-fatal. I always thought a simple over-the-co…

What does ingesting 10g of acetaminophen even look like? I've got to imagine the fatal dose is far, far, far lower with chronic usage. Finding out that people are ingesting grams is profoundly disturbing.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#29
post #11

This is pretty misguided.A casual mistake like forgetting your cough syrup has acetaminophen can easily cause an overdose and then you fucking die . That’s not the risk profile you want for “most people in most circumstances”.

500mg from a capsule and 500 from cough syrup 4 times a day is still fine. With a 100% safety margin still.

If you’re taking more meds than that without clinical supervision Id say something is wrong in the system or your medicine practices.

Where I’m from it’s common to walk to the nearest pharmacy and get meds when needed. Even over the counter stuff like paracetamols. And talking to the pharmacist. They’ll ask what you’re already taking and tell you what else to get.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#30
post #11

This is pretty misguided.A casual mistake like forgetting your cough syrup has acetaminophen can easily cause an overdose and then you fucking die . That’s not the risk profile you want for “most people in most circumstances”.

Yeah this is optimizing for the good case instead of tail risks and mistakes and we see too many overdoses already.

Of course, we could press the fix this immediately button by requiring acetaminophen to be sold mixed with NAC but that would be too easy.

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