Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Should DayQuil Be Legal?

theargumentmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 322 posts

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#191

Post by ButlerianJihad »

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 was in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day last year. I received 8 diagnoses at that time, including "Diabetic Hypertension" and "Metabolic Acidosis" and E. coli infection, and Hyponatremia.

They treated me with an antibiotic, a potassium-rich saline drip and acetaminophen. Yeah that's all they put in my orders.

The thing that pissed me off so much, firstly they insisted on calling it "Tylenol" when it was not, in fact, brand-name Tylenol but generic acetaminophen (even if they could charge $$$ per pill on it) and also that they basically refused to administer it at a rate that would keep my exquisite headache pain at bay. I was literally screaming and moaning through the entire night and day. (Actually, I was wearing one of those radio-transmitting heart monitors, and mostly the screams happened when I moved suddenly, and the electrodes tore at my chest hair...) But my head was also constantly throbbing, and that's how I knew to go to the hospital in the first place.

The nurses could tell me how long to wait between doses, but they couldn't explain to me how to know that interval, given no clocks and no written-down time of dosing. So basically I had to keep guessing throughout my sleepless nights. And they didn't really inform me of a way to just put it on automatic dosing like a normal hospital would have a schedule for.

I really didn't want acetaminophen at all; I don't like it much, and it really hasn't ever relieved any pain I've ever taken it for. My parents chomped so much of it, made me sick just watching them. I lived through the cyanide adulteration episodes and though unsolved, that guy wasn't wrong.

When I finally got to visit a sane PCP after all this madness, I told him I was taking big doses of Bayer Aspirin, and he said that's fine; just follow instructions and heed warnings, and he also warned me: for Heaven's sake don't ever take any acetaminophen, because it would seriously harm my liver!!!

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#192

Post by chrisweekly »

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…

[flagged]

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#193

Post by saalweachter »

thallavajhula wrote: post #86

I use DayQuil/NyQuil when I get a cold and in my case, it's always worked well. It suppresses the symptoms and lets me carry on with my day-to-day. I did try once going 1 week without it and it was hell.

When the hubbub about phenylephrine first started, I decided I still felt less miserable taking DayQuil/NyQuil, and switched to the "High Blood Pressure" formulation, which drops the phenylephrine, alcohol and sugar.

It takes it down to just the Tylenol, the DXM (, plus the antihistamine in the NyQuil), and the great slightly tearable taste for the ritual of "time to pretend I'm not sick for a little while".

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#194

Post by annzabelle »

eureka7 wrote: post #188
ssl-3 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For a lot of us, Ibuprofen works just as well or better than Acetaminophen, so banning Acetaminophen is not much of a problem.

I am on a medication that's contraindicated with NSAIDs, but I made sure that a low dose of Ibuprofen was acceptable.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#195

Post by mindslight »

ryandrake wrote: post #28
robertpateii wrote: post #8

Yeah, intentionally misleading consumers should always be at least somewhat illegal. Sure caveat emptor, but consumers having accurate information is implied and a cornerstone of a competitive market.

"Caveat Emptor" and "Do your own research" is not a basis for a functional society. Providing reading material is not a sufficient substitute for regulation in a country like the USA where 54% of adults read below a sixth-grade level. And letting marketing decide what counts as "accurate information" is just letting the fox guard the henhouse.

> Providing reading material is not a sufficient substitute for regulation in a country like the USA where 54% of adults read below a sixth-grade level

This is obvious, but thank you for putting it so succinctly. One has to wonder how much support for "do your own research" is driven by people who want to remain proudly-in-denial about their own inabilities.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#196

Post by saagarjha »

chrisweekly wrote: post #192
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…

[flagged]

Dude, chill out. Everything has a fatal dose, you can literally look up the LD50 and find that it’s a big number. Nobody is coming for your weed.

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#197

Post by mindslight »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
mindslight wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I said "diminish greatly" rather than solve - by doing something basically everybody should be able to agree on regardless if you think a given product should be on the market or not. They should probably have to split up large words with dashes or even spaces "phenyl-ephrine" "psuedo-ephedrine". Maybe even "phenyl-eph-rine" "psuedo-eph-edrine". One authoritative list published by the FDA (they already kee…

It just seems like a quick patch that doesn't acknowledge or address the root cause: that the FDA is supposed to be regulating both safety and effectiveness, but it is largely abdicating the "effectiveness" role over to companies' marketing departments. If corporate marketing can convince the public that the serpensoleum drug works, then that's enough to put it in a shiny box in the drug store.

The problem is that you're butting up against the highly profitable cult of ignorance. For instance if something isn't intended to actually treat a disease, then it's basically exempt from FDA regulation as it's a "supplement". Then the seller is free to imply whatever they want, regardless of efficacy.

I'm advocating something that ideally can sit in the middle of the two philosophical/regulatory regimes with more people on board - being able to buy whatever you want, but regulation aimed at preventing companies "innovating" by simply confusing the market. And while I'm sympathetic to extending the scientific-maximalist approach onto the "supplement" industry that is currently harboring copious amounts of straight up fraud, I would also say that throwing down such a gauntlet doesn't seem like a great idea at the moment!

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#198

Post by throwawalien »

chrisweekly wrote: post #192
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…

[flagged]

you can overdose on water

Re: Should DayQuil Be Legal?

#199

Post by padjo »

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…

It's not under appreciated in the UK and Ireland where you can only buy tiny quantities of it at a time. Cash registers will literally refuse to process a sale if there is more than one pack of acetaminophen in your groceries.

On the plus side you can still buy psuedo OTC.

Post reply on HN