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Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

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Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#211

Post by chintler »

franga2000 wrote: post #178
watwut wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Guideline #1 for comments-

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#212

Post by jcul »

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 Ireland you can buy acetaminophen in stores, gas stations etc.

For ibuprofen you need to go to a pharmacy.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#213

Post by robocat »

Eisenstein wrote: post #102
cowlby wrote: post #100

I keep reading about this lately but what doesn't make sense then is how few deaths/injuries there are relative to how much acetaminophen is consumed. If tens of millions take it every day, that's billions of doses a year of acetaminophen. Why don't we see MORE injuries/deaths?

"Acetaminophen toxicity is the second most common reason for liver transplantation worldwide and the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Responsible for 56,000 emergency department visits and 2600 hospitalizations, acetaminophen poisoning causes 500 deaths annually in the United States." 56,000 emergency room visits is the key here, because "the mortality associated with acetaminophen overd…

About 50% of overdoses are intentional (especially suicidal teenagers), with the other 50% accidental.

So when pondering the issue of numbers, it matters what path people took to overdose.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#214

Post by socalgal2 »

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.…

Here in my body, it tells me acetaminophen does absolutely nothing for pain where as ibuprofen does. I wouldn't take ibuprofen for fever

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#215

Post by zimpenfish »

Nursie wrote: post #174
brainwad wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I hope that's shown in the evidence anyway

tl;dr: Yes

Paraphrasing from [0], after September 1998 when the restriction was introduced, "The annual number of deaths from paracetamol poisoning decreased by 21% [...] the number from salicylates decreased by 48% [...] Liver transplant rates after paracetamol poisoning decreased by 66% [...] The rate of non-fatal self poisoning with paracetamol in any form decreased by 11%"

See also [1]: "in the 11 years following the legislation there were an estimated 765 fewer suicide and open verdict deaths from paracetamol poisoning, which represented a reduction of 43% [...] This reduction was largely unaltered after controlling for a downward trend in deaths involving other methods of poisoning and also suicides by all methods."

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC31616/

[1] https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/research/research-groups/csr/rese...

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#216

Post by sitharus »

cassianoleal wrote: post #176
omnimus wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With medicine both can be true, the response depends on so many factors in your body. Same way that for some people, particularly those with ADHD, taking stimulants can make them sleepy.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#217

Post by m12k »

I feel like this article leaves out the latest research pointing to acetaminophen having a negative effect on fertility, hindering embrionic development and potentially also also follicular development in baby girls. It's a trade-off for sure, but if you're trying to have a baby, you may want to swing back to ibuprofen.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40819833/

[2] https://ddeacademy.dk/ddea/what-new-research-reveals-about-p...

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#218

Post by pjc50 »

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 have a counter-study with size n=1: I did all my recovery from tonsilectomy on paracetamol and definitely noticed it working. That was however on the maximum safe dose.

(one of the major problems with paracetamol is that the effective dose is only a few multiples away from the dose which starts to cause liver damage! It is by a long way the most dangerous OTC drug)

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#219

Post by robocat »

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.

No.

Alcohol and Acetominophen/paracetamol should not be mixed.

  When alcohol enters the picture, it increases the activity of CYP2E1, so the body produces more of the NAPQI toxin. Alcohol also decreases glutathione production, the body’s natural defense mechanism, meaning NAPQI is more likely to build up in the liver in dangerous concentrations.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322813

Sorry, crappy link. If you don't like it, it is easy to search for a better one.

Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen

#220

Post by AnthonyMouse »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #86
devmor wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have taken 4-5g in a day while suffering from intense pain before. There is a limit to the amount of opioids they will prescribe you, even if you are in mind shattering pain. For instance while attempting to get your dental insurance to actually cover a treatment you may find yourself between risking organ damage or risking $5000+ in ER visit bills only to have them refuse to give you anything but Tramadol.

It is mind boggling how statements like that are possible in the US. I guess it is much better than the situation before that, where you paid $5000+ and they also gave you an opioid addiction.

> I guess it is much better than the situation before that, where you paid $5000+ and they also gave you an opioid addiction.

Having a condition that actually warrants strong opioids and not being able to get them at any price is definitely not an improvement.

The problem is fundamentally that we want to pretend doctors can always distinguish two people describing the same symptoms when one person actually has them and the other is trying to get drugs. The often can't, so you can either make it hard for people to get pain medications even if they need them, or you can make it easy for people to get them even if they don't. And between these the second one is unambiguously better, because the first one is the government screwing innocent people and the second one is guilty people screwing themselves.

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