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

Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

asteriskmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 504 posts

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#121

Post by petesergeant »

psidebot wrote: post #75
adrianmonk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently a common source of problems is taking two different medications without realizing they both contain acetaminophen. Suppose your arthritis is acting up, so you start taking Tylenol 8hr Arthritis Pain[1]. That's 2 tablets every 8 hours. They're extended-release with 650mg per tablet. A total of 3900 mg in 24 hours. A few days later you get the flu, so you decide to add what seems like a completely different…

My personal rule is to only purchase over-the-counter meds with a single active ingredient. I'd rather separately take an antihistamine, expectorant and painkiller than a concoction where I have to read the whole label and do math while sick to separate the doses and timings.

Specifically this is one reason they’ll sell you cocodemol or Vicodin but not codeine or hydrocodone directly — if you take enough to get a codeine high, you’ll have taken a toxic amount of paracetamol/acetaminophen, so they assume you won’t.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#122

Post by isoprophlex »

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.

Okay that's right, if you just keep upping the dose because you're still in pain it might be easy to just slam a few every 4 hours

From personal experience if i have a headache I'll take 1000 mg all at once; it either works right away or it doesnt and I stop bothering until I've had a good nights rest...

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#123

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

topham wrote: post #89

The right tool for the right job. When it comes to medication, in the right dosage. I'm aware of acetaminophen's down sides, and yet recently I was taking it combined with 2 other medications at the time. Why? Because all three medications are recommended for dealing with the issue I had. (Alone and in combination) The moment it wasn't helping further? Done. There is this broken idea, particularly apparent in North A…

Try dealing with a herniated disc, more ibu is definitely better. Too little wont do anything, proper dose and you feel healed

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#124

Post by dilyevsky »

CalChris wrote: post #83

For migraines, I take two CVS Migraine about every week to ten days. It's a cocktail of acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine which tallies to 500 mg of acetaminophen, well under then 4g limit. It's good for four hours but you can only take two per day. I didn't know about this acetaminophen risk. So I'll be looking for alternatives. Ibuprofen is for inflammation and not headaches. Naproxen is a candidate.

High dose aspirin (1000mg) + caffeine worked much better for me for migraines than paracetamol/ibuprofen/naproxen which did nothing. There're some studies supporting this too...

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#125

Post by Mars008 »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #7
jasperry wrote: post #5

This is some of the most useful information I've received in a while. Like the author, the low overdose threshold of acetaminophen made me avoid it, even though I always take low doses anyway and ibuprofen gives me acid reflux almost every time.

Same here. Great article. I avoid both and stick with naproxen sodium. Any issues with that one? Lasts the longest too.

I had to use naproxen for some time as most effective way to control inflammation. Actually the only way, ibuprofen had some effect only in horse dozes. After visiting doctor, analyses, checking available sources was able to eliminate the reason of inflammation. Apparently it was a well known problem/solution. So far so good. Not sure about the long lasting effects of naproxen use.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#126

Post by watwut »

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.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#127

Post by oliyoung »

It's a very strange cultural thing too, Australians (and I presume other Commonwealth countries) default to paracetamol (acetaminophen) before ibuprofen

Paracetemol has always been seen as first thing you'd take for pain relief, and you'd "step up" ibuprofen as an escalation, but that might more to do with marketing of Panadol (paracetemol) vs Nurofen (ibuprofen).

We'd look on at the US where you were taking Advil like candy in confusion.

One great thing you learn as a parent, you can alternate acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Both of them are recommended every four hours, but you can stagger one by two hours to maintain consistency of pain-relief taking ibuprofen then paracetemol two hours later

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#128

Post by carlsborg »

"since 2019, on the advice of the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products, French health workers have been told not to treat fever or infections with ibuprofen." [1]

But yet in some countries pediatricians will libreally prescribe it to toddlers

[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1086

Also from [2] "In this systematic review of NSAID use during acute lower respiratory tract infections in adults, we found that the existing evidence for mortality, pleuro-pulmonary complications and rates of mechanical ventilation or organ failure is of extremely poor quality, very low certainty and should be interpreted with caution."

https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.1451...

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#129

Post by kazinator »

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…

The higher risk of GI bleeds is could be somewhat balanced by not having to take as many.

There are also slow release forms of naproxen. (Which make sense given its long action: lets people fade in the next one while the previous dose slowly fades out). That could also help make it easier on the GI tract.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#130

Post by iamniels »

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.…

In Western Europe too.

> but it does absolutely nothing with actual pain. It is placebo at best.

This is simply false.

Post reply on HN