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Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

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Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#171

Post by arethuza »

watwut wrote: post #126
magicalhippo wrote: post #110

> 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.…

The only issue with treating pain with paracetamol is that it does not work at all against the pain. It works against fewer or maybe mild inflammation and what not ... but it does absolutely nothing with actual pain. It is placebo at best.

Many years ago I had 4 surgical procedures done around my nose/throat at the same time - straightening a deviated septum, turbinectomy, enlarging the openings into my sinuses and removing my tonsils. This meant I couldn't breath through my nose for about a month - and breathing through your mouth when you've just had tonsils removed is quite painful.

Soluble paracetamol literally turned the pain off like a switch - of course I was limited as to how much I could take, which I was careful to stick to but I was almost in tears waiting for the time to come where I could take more paracetamol.

So in some situations paracetamol can be an extremely effective painkiller.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#172

Post by danlitt »

watwut wrote: post #126
magicalhippo wrote: post #110

> 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.…

The only issue with treating pain with paracetamol is that it does not work at all against the pain. It works against fewer or maybe mild inflammation and what not ... but it does absolutely nothing with actual pain. It is placebo at best.

It may not work for you, I don't know. But it absolutely does work in general!

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#173

Post by jeroenhd »

skrebbel wrote: post #85
isoprophlex wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

People who are in a lot of pain and don’t know the risks. Rationalizations like “they probably put the limit way lower than the real limit so idiots don’t OD themselves, so I can safely take a bit more” become very attractive when you’re in a lot of pain.

To be fair, the "real" limit depends on how lucky you are with your body's makeup. The safe limit is below that limit.

I know people with permanent pain due to medical conditions who have been given a doctor's approval to exceed the limits printed on the packaging (after having previously been monitored). You can exceed the limit on the packaging by one or two pills.

A bit more is often not deadly, but it's very easy to take more than a bit. When I had a messed up mouth for several days, I took the maximum doses and set timers to help me regulate the dosage throughout the day, but I sure wished I could've taken more at that time.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#174

Post by Nursie »

brainwad wrote: post #105
Nursie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh right - that's probably what we did, buy a big pack from behind the counter.

I don't think you can even do that in the UK.

Yeah we usually have a few packs hanging around, and I get the 'it seems stupid' thing, but sometimes just adding a tiny bit of friction when someone's trying to kill themselves might save a life. I dunno, I hope that's shown in the evidence anyway. Otherwise it's just pointless like the whole pseudoephedrine song and dance, which has inconvenienced anyone looking for a decongestant while doing sweet FA to the availability of meth.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#175

Post by Melatonic »

binoct wrote: post #112
kazinator wrote: post #20

You don't want either of these; what you want is naproxen. It works similarly, but stays a lot longer (half life is cited as being anywhere from 12 to 17 hours). Acetaminophen and ibuprofen are just for temporary problems, like a headache that would go away on its own in a couple of hours. They are uneconomic and inconvenient if you have something more persistent to keep at bay. Four ibuprofens or one naproxen? No br…

As pointed out in the article, naproxen is an NSAID like Ibuprofen, though slightly more COX1 selective. It likely has a somewhat lower risk of serious renal and cardiovascular events, but higher risk of GI bleeds. There are some studies that show little to no increase cardiovascular risk, but most do show some or even comparable to ibuprofen. Convenience vs ibuprofen is a thing given the longer half life, but it sti…

I weirdly always found Naproxen much more effective than ibuprofen but also find Celebrex great which seems to further confuse the whole COX 1 vs 2 situation

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#176

Post by cassianoleal »

omnimus wrote: post #140
sitharus wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it does absolutely nothing with actual pain Neither paracetamol nor ibuprofen work by blocking pain. Depending on the type of pain and your physiology it can range from really effective to not at all. I only take paracetamol, it works better than both ibuprofen and opioids for me. I know other people who have the exact opposite experience. There’s no absolute here.

Yeah paracetamol does absolutely nothing to me with pain. I thought its mainly fever medicine.

Same here. Paracetamol also gives me pretty strong stomach aches whereas ibuprofen rarely has a gastric effect and when it does it's mild at best. I've been told by many people that the opposite should be true but oh well.

I wish they dipyrone was sold here, but alas I can only get it when I travel abroad.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#177

Post by Melatonic »

Why are COX-2 drugs like Celebrex still prescription only ? Seems like it would theoretically be a lot safer to offer a medium low dose of it over the counter vs other NSAIDs

That being said I weirdly find Naproxen the most effective of all of these. Everyone is different though

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#178

Post by franga2000 »

watwut wrote: post #166
iamniels wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Western Europe too. > but it does absolutely nothing with actual pain. It is placebo at best. This is simply false.

It is not false. It does nothing. Head hurts, you take paracetamol ... head still hurts. The belly hurts, you take paracetamol ... nothing change. When I took ibuprofen it did actually made an actual real change.

"I took it and it didn't work so it's a fake placebo drug" - wow, your scientific method is flawless, have you considered a career at the US Department of Health?

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#179

Post by Flashtoo »

epcoa wrote: post #45
tokyobreakfast wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

No. Ethanol and tylenol compete for CYP2E1 that produces toxic NAPQI, so no, acute alcohol intoxication has a protective effect at least where it comes to tylenol toxicity.

This is correct.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#180

Post by jeroenhd »

i_think_so wrote: post #157
_--__--__ wrote: post #2

My father, who is otherwise in very good health for a ~60 year old, has severely reduced kidney function from taking an ibuprofen+antihistamine most days of his early life to deal with allergies. I'll second the claim that no doctor at any point in his life had told him the risks of doing that, and many encouraged the use of ibuprofen over any other alternative (including the alternative of not using OTC painkillers…

If there's one thing I'm hopeful for regarding all this AI hype, it's that some day we might actually get the Expert Systems we were promised decades ago. Then, finally, we can stop expecting human doctors to know everything . There's just so much going on inside our bodies and it's unrealistic. I had a relative with a different story in the same theme. It sucks and I want to see this technology do something truly be…

The expert system relies on training data, and most of the medical data on the internet is either outdated or outright wrong. AI is not going to solve what the existence of Google hasn't solved already.
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