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Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

asteriskmag.com

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Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#101

Post by bonsai_spool »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #87
bonsai_spool wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't make a habit of taking either, what actually performs better? Tylenol/acetaminophen is good for fever which NSAIDs won't help. Otherwise, take both and alternate their dosing times for better pain coverage.

"Good for fever"? Only ignorant consumers would attempt to counteract the body's very own defenses against infection and disease. A fever is not dangerous within normal parameters, except for being dangerous to the virus and bacteria that threaten the body. Your body runs a fever because it engages in a battle to the death with these microbes. If you defeat the body's own defenses by lowering the fever, for example i…

> "Good for fever"? Only ignorant consumers would attempt to counteract the body's very own defenses against infection and disease.

Yes, ignorant consumers and physicians across the world.

You can't just 'vibe medicine' or 'vibe biology' - please don't comment if you don't know what you're talking about.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#102

Post by Eisenstein »

cowlby wrote: post #100

I keep reading about this lately but what doesn't make sense then is how few deaths/injuries there are relative to how much acetaminophen is consumed. If tens of millions take it every day, that's billions of doses a year of acetaminophen. Why don't we see MORE injuries/deaths?

"Acetaminophen toxicity is the second most common reason for liver transplantation worldwide and the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Responsible for 56,000 emergency department visits and 2600 hospitalizations, acetaminophen poisoning causes 500 deaths annually in the United States."

56,000 emergency room visits is the key here, because "the mortality associated with acetaminophen overdose is low if recognized and treated within the first 8 hours after an acute ingestion."

So I guess it depends on if you think 56,000 is low or not.

Source: "Acetaminophen Toxicity", David H. Schaffer; Brian P. Murray; Babak Khazaeni. 2026/02/19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#103

Post by georgeburdell »

I went from introvert only-child to married with kids. As they hit daycare, I was perpetually riddled with disease for about 15 months. I still had to take care of the kids though, so I was liberally taking Ibuprofen. At some point, I started to get horrible heartburn. I tried all kinds of dietary restrictions until I realized it was probably the Ibuprofen. Now, if I take even one pill, the heartburn comes back. I switched to Acetaminophen and found it was much more effective at reducing fever with no apparent side effects.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#104

Post by 7bit »

seemaze wrote: post #3

I grew up with the understanding that acetaminophen was the safe choice for fever or aches, and ibuprofen what the more potent compound for inflammation and severe pain. I recall casual anecdotes that "my doctor said 1.5x or 2x ibuprofen dose is ok when warranted" to address major incursions. I've never once thought about taking more than the recommended dosage of acetaminophen, largely because I had no expectation t…

If your doctor recommends to take a specific dose, take the specific dose. Don't half it. Taking half of stuff can also cause further damage. Like with antibiotics, where it can lead to bacteria becoming resistant.

So don't be the "smarter" person. Do as your doctor says and if you have doubts, consult another doctor before just doing what you think is safe, but actually isn't.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#105

Post by brainwad »

Nursie wrote: post #26
pugio wrote: 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.

You can still buy 100 packs, they are just behind the counter at chemists. TBH it's a rather stupid restriction - do they think people only ever own 1 packet of paracetamol at a time? In my household we have at least half a dozen, including a 100-pack from Oz and a 500-pack from America.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#106

Post by yumraj »

I’ve alternated these for fever, especially for kids, especially when it’s high and hard to control. That way you keep below the daily limit of each and don’t overdose on either.

Have gotten into a habit of keeping a note of which med when on the fridge.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#108

Post by brainwad »

isoprophlex wrote: post #72
justinc8687 wrote: post #66

I lived with an ICU nurse for years and one of the things he emphasized was the risk of acetaminophen overdose. He's more than once treated the liver failure (and death) from it and by his words, it's one of the worse ways to go. The positive of it is it got me in the habit of logging whenever I take it, either in a note on my phone or just a sheet of paper I place on my dresser under the bottle. This helps make sure…

I'm not disagreeing with you or trying to be disagreeable, but how do people accidentally exceed 3-4 grams daily? That's 6-8 pills!

It often happens when people take the max dose of straight paracetamol, and then also take another drug that has paracetamol in it without knowing that (e.g. a codeine/paracetamol or ibuprofen/paracetamol combination).

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#109

Post by blueblisters »

Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is the drug of first choice for addressing pain and fever, in India at least. To the extent that it's regularly abused, and I know people who have been hospitalized because of abuse.

Even then, doctors are usually disapproving of ibuprofen (or some combination of it with paracetamol) unless paracetamol is contraindicated for some reason, and I had always wondered why.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#110

Post by magicalhippo »

> But if acetaminophen is safer, then why don’t official sources tell you that?

Guess it depends on country. Here in Norway official sources[1][2] do say acetaminophen (paracetamol here) should be the default for treating fever and pain in kids, adults, pregnant women and elderly, and have for some time. Ibuprofen they say should be used with caution.

[1]: https://www.dmp.no/nyheter/behov-for-smertestillende-slik-ve...

[2]: https://nhi.no/for-helsepersonell/nytt-om-legemidler/arkiv-2...

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