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Should DayQuil Be Legal?

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Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#181

Post by Forgeties79 »

lobf wrote: post #163
nostrademons wrote: post #96

The article kinda glossed over it, but one fact under-appreciated by the general public is just how dangerous acetaminophen overdoses can be . Scientists often talk about the "therapeutic index" or "safety ratio" of a drug. It's the LD50 (dose at which 50% of recipients die) divided by the effective dose. Common hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine have a safety ratio of about 6-10 [1]. "Soft" drugs like marijua…

I simply do not take acetaminophen because of this risk.

Ibuprofen isn't easy on the kidneys either so I'd keep an eye on that if you don't

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#182

Post by basch »

nostrademons wrote: post #96

The article kinda glossed over it, but one fact under-appreciated by the general public is just how dangerous acetaminophen overdoses can be . Scientists often talk about the "therapeutic index" or "safety ratio" of a drug. It's the LD50 (dose at which 50% of recipients die) divided by the effective dose. Common hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine have a safety ratio of about 6-10 [1]. "Soft" drugs like marijua…

>4-6 500mg tablets within a 24 hour period

On top of that daily use brings it down to 3-5, preferably 4 or less of those a day. And they last less than 6 hours.

The 8h extended release is 650mg a tablet, and you can have 3-4 a day daily. And if you have any experience taking them you can feel the first half of the extended dose wear off before the extended one kicks in, which leads to basically NEEDING 4 a day, and staggered start times.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#183

Post by unparagoned »

nostrademons wrote: post #96

The article kinda glossed over it, but one fact under-appreciated by the general public is just how dangerous acetaminophen overdoses can be . Scientists often talk about the "therapeutic index" or "safety ratio" of a drug. It's the LD50 (dose at which 50% of recipients die) divided by the effective dose. Common hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine have a safety ratio of about 6-10 [1]. "Soft" drugs like marijua…

Therapeutic index of fentanyl is much higher than heroin or morphine, but I don’t think people really think that it makes it safer.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#184

Post by qw3rty01 »

nostrademons wrote: post #171
timothyisonline wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ibuprofen isn’t much better, unfortunately.

The therapeutic index for ibuprofen is considerably better: it's around 10, fairly similar to alcohol. Accidental overdoses of ibuprofen are rare. The main issue with ibuprofen is that it can have fairly annoying (but non-life-threatening) side effects like stomach upset and GI bleeds even with normal dosing.

It can also cause kidney damage which can be life threatening, especially when you’re dehydrated (which is pretty common after drinking); tylenol is a lot safer than ibuprofin when used as directed, it only becomes dangerous when glutathione is depleted (at which point it becomes a lot more dangerous, which is why you should never drink while taking Tylenol)

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#185

Post by hn_user82179 »

nostrademons wrote: post #96

The article kinda glossed over it, but one fact under-appreciated by the general public is just how dangerous acetaminophen overdoses can be . Scientists often talk about the "therapeutic index" or "safety ratio" of a drug. It's the LD50 (dose at which 50% of recipients die) divided by the effective dose. Common hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine have a safety ratio of about 6-10 [1]. "Soft" drugs like marijua…

I'm grateful for you mentioning this. I grew up with ibuprofen as my default painkiller without really thinking of it too much but am about to do PRP which requires no NSAIDs for a week prior and 3 months after - but they do allow/recommend Tylenol as an alternative, especially for the post-procedure pain. I just would've assumed it was a sufficiently good substitute that I could treat them equivalently but now i know to be very careful about tracking how many I'm taking each day

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#186

Post by [deleted] »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #126
nekusar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antibiotics are routinely given to all of their farm animals as part of their food, for prophylaxis. But allowing humans to buy when they're sick is somehow the super-strain-end-of-times?? Antibiotics stop bacteria. Antivirals stop viruses. Except bacteria can be attacked whenever, the sooner the better. Antivirals need a rapid and early timeframe to work. Getting a fucking doctor to say yes is almost always too long…

> Antibiotics are routinely given to all of their farm animals as part of their food, for prophylaxis. That's also a problem [0]; and it's one that can't be solved by creating a second, somewhat related problem. 0: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11200672/

[deleted]

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#187

Post by Izkata »

jollyllama wrote: post #146
MichaelDickens wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not even available behind the counter anymore, presumably because they can make more money from morons buying the placebos. What do you mean "morons"? Say I'm a normal person who doesn't habitually read magazine articles about drug effectiveness. How am I supposed to know that phenylephrine doesn't work? It's in the drug store and they're selling it as a decongestant; I have good reason to believe it will deco…

You don't need to know anything about the new stuff. You used to be able to get Sudafed; it worked. It was moved behind the counter for $REASONS. You've got enough to guess that the new stuff is some kind of inferior substitute and that you're only going to be able to get the real thing during pharmacy hours.

That was 20 years ago. Plenty of people never experienced the good Sudafed and have no idea it moved.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#188

Post by eureka7 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #169
viccis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acetaminophen should be treated with more caution in general. So many people have reacted with shock and upset when I told them that taking Tylenol (or anything with acetaminophen in it like Dayquil/Nyquil) while drinking can cause immediate liver damage.

Indeed. I like beer quite a lot and have for a very long time, so acetaminophen is banned from my medicine cabinet.

Seems like the logical thing to ban from your stomach for the time periods you need acetaminophen is the beer, unless I'm missing something.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#189

Post by Calvin02 »

projektfu wrote: post #121
Aurornis wrote: post #35

This article uses the trick where you pick studies that support your argument and ignore all of the studies that disagree with it. There are other studies where Dextromethorphan improves both objective and subjective measures of coughing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37232330/ They also picked a study that shows honey outperforming Dextromethorphan but ignored all the studies that show honey performing similarly o…

And, all of this, to avoid selling a little bit of the narcotic codeine. Which was technically permitted to be sold "behind the counter" without prescription, but was made Schedule II as part of cough syrup in the US not long ago. (It used to be Schedule III or IV when combined with homoatropine or promethazine).

100%

I wonder if the cost benefit analysis would show that this is still the best policy - I.e. are more people dying because of overdose of acetaminophen than would have from “behind the counter” + controlled acquisition of codeine products.

I would also imagine that the compliance / nationwide tracking is now much easier than when the legislation was initially conceived.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#190

Post by jollyllama »

Izkata wrote: post #187
jollyllama wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to know anything about the new stuff. You used to be able to get Sudafed; it worked. It was moved behind the counter for $REASONS. You've got enough to guess that the new stuff is some kind of inferior substitute and that you're only going to be able to get the real thing during pharmacy hours.

That was 20 years ago. Plenty of people never experienced the good Sudafed and have no idea it moved.

Then it's also been enough time to think about bringing it back again. That's my whole complaint about this article, is that it fails to reach the correct conclusion.
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