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The first non-opoid painkiller

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Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to take that much. LD50 is surprisingly close to the normal dose, and possible to do if you don't realise that cold remedies contain it (or that aminocetophen and paracetamol are the same thing!)

I avoid it at all costs because of the possibility of liver damage. Ibuprofen seems to have the same effect without potentially serious side effects.

People will still happily use paracetamol when drinking or "for hangover" (headache and all that), hitting their liver really hard. :(

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, the rules the UK has for limiting paracetamol purchases to small amount per day are so fantastically stupid. Yes, but: > Responsible for 56,000 emergency department visits and 2600 hospitalizations, acetaminophen poisoning causes 500 deaths annually in the United States. Notably, around 50% of these poisonings are unintentional, often resulting from patients misinterpreting dosing instructions or unknowingly…

I was under the impression that a lot of overdoses of acetaminophen are due to it being included in many different multiple-medicine cold/flu remidies, like cough syrup, NyQuil, decongestants, etc. So people end up exceeding the max dose accidentally when they take acetaminophen along with some of those other things. Does the UK have rules that prevent mixing acetaminophen with other drugs? Its getting so its sometim…

The UK rules apply to all medicines containing paracetamol.

Non-pharmacy retailers are only allowed to sell in packs of 16, and they'll usually only allow two packs of any paracetamol-containing medication to be sold at a time (eg. one cold/flu and one cough remedy).

If the name of the product doesn't already contain the word "paracetamol", then all of the packaging must prominently display "contains paracetamol" - so even small retailers that don't have computerised checkouts are expected to follow the same rules.

Deaths from paracetamol overdose fell by 43% (with a similar decrease in the rate of accidental poisonings) in the first 11 years after these changes were implemented: https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f403

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#113
post #2

Colloquially acetaminophen/paracetamol and ibuprofen are "painkillers" but this is in a different class, it's amazing to have something which performs like the opioid pain relief but without at least some of the side effects. It's the first non opioid painkiller applicable for situations like post operative use. I'd have loved this after my hernia op, the last thing you need with that is opioid induced constipation.

Off topic complaint: I am guessing an absolutely massive amount of (admittedly minor in each instance) grief has been caused by the most widely deployed simple, inexpensive, useful and familiar drug unnecessarily having two different names acetaminophen / paracetamol. Finally figured this out this year (aged 64) after previously being confused why I couldn't find any damn paracetamol in pharmacies on my occasional vi…

There was no grief in my case. I was recently in Italy with my mother. With a picture of a Tylenol bottle, before I could even utter sto cercando..., the pharmacist quickly gave her a box of something. I think it was called panadol.

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paracetamol is the standard and WHO approved name used everywhere except certain parts of the US. It's ridiculous the FDA chose acetaminophen.

What parts of the US use paracetamol? I’ve lived on both coasts and the Midwest and haven’t ever seen anything but acetaminophen.

Wikipedia has it's acetaminophen in United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Colombia and Venezuela

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#116
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would certainly consider ibuprofen a "painkiller", it works wonders when I get a headache. So the phrase "the first non-opioid pain reliever suitable for treating post-surgery pain" used later in the article should actually have been the title IMHO...

Interesting that for me ibuprofen doesn’t do absolutely anything (and I’m someone that avoided painkillers almost all my life) I take 1g pills and nothing. Well, not nothing, my stomach clearly doesn’t like it and I feel it. Human pain and painkillers response seems extremely variable across different subjects.

My family usually had paracetamol so I went till my early 20s without getting anything for pain or colds as it didn't do anything to me and it felt pointless. I mostly get headaches so discovering Ibuprofen was a life changer. I got a toothache that ibuprofen did nothing against so I tried paracetamol again, still no effects.

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic complaint: I am guessing an absolutely massive amount of (admittedly minor in each instance) grief has been caused by the most widely deployed simple, inexpensive, useful and familiar drug unnecessarily having two different names acetaminophen / paracetamol. Finally figured this out this year (aged 64) after previously being confused why I couldn't find any damn paracetamol in pharmacies on my occasional vi…

Paracetamol is the standard and WHO approved name used everywhere except certain parts of the US. It's ridiculous the FDA chose acetaminophen.

Paracetamol was coined in 1956, acetaminophen was coined in 1955[1]. The world pharmaceutical stage was a bit less globalized back then, so splits in naming like this just happened. They're both contractions of the full chemical name, so it's hard to argue one is more correct than the other. At this point the names are too entrenched in their respective countries, so changing them would only cause mass confusion and likely overdoses due to people not understanding what they're taking.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol#Naming

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to take that much. LD50 is surprisingly close to the normal dose, and possible to do if you don't realise that cold remedies contain it (or that aminocetophen and paracetamol are the same thing!)

I avoid it at all costs because of the possibility of liver damage. Ibuprofen seems to have the same effect without potentially serious side effects.

I take the OG: Aspirin.

Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#119
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic complaint: I am guessing an absolutely massive amount of (admittedly minor in each instance) grief has been caused by the most widely deployed simple, inexpensive, useful and familiar drug unnecessarily having two different names acetaminophen / paracetamol. Finally figured this out this year (aged 64) after previously being confused why I couldn't find any damn paracetamol in pharmacies on my occasional vi…

Tylenol also. Virtually all drugs and chemical products go under a bunch of somewhat confusing names. I guess for marketing?

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Re: The first non-opoid painkiller

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I avoid it at all costs because of the possibility of liver damage. Ibuprofen seems to have the same effect without potentially serious side effects.

Ibuprofen is anti inflammatory which paracetamol isn't. IIRC this means ibuprofen can hide infections. I had a doctor friend who avoided its use as generic pain relief for that reason.

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