Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is actual pain?
When it hurts. Like, when your head hurts for example.
And if it stops the hurt - does it stop the actual pain?
Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
321–330 of 504 posts
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#322[deleted]
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#323> 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.…
They do in NZ. Paracetamol is promoted as the safest, most well studied pain relief for short and chronic conditions. In Australia however they have just started limiting how many you can buy at a time for some reason while ibuprofen covers the chemist shelves without any such controls despite the risks.
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#324Acetaminophen has a quirky effect if you’re on a CGM. It makes your interstitial glucose read higher than your blood glucose.
Context: I’m t1 diabetic.
I was recovering from an injury, and I switched from ibuprofen to acetaminophen. But the whole time I was on it, my sensor glucose was reading 50-60 mg/dl higher than my blood glucose. This is really bad on a closed loop system as my pump kept trying to lower my blood sugar, but it was pushing me into hypoglycemia (50 mg/dl).
Turns out this is a common effect, but a relatively new discovery that no one told me about.
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#325> 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.
Your statements are factually incorrect.
Double blind placebo controlled trials have shown that acetaminophen/paracetamol is superior to a placebo at controlling pain.
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like this is one of those things where Europe and the US are very different, culturally speaking - I've lived in the Netherlands, Germany and now Sweden, and the amount of painkillers used and prescribed here seems much lower than what Americans tell me is normal in the US. Pain a warning signal from the body. It's something one should listen to, not just try to ignore and overrule. If I sprain my ankle it onl…
> Pain a warning signal from the body. It's something one should listen to, not just try to ignore and overrule. This is vastly overstating the rationality of the human body. It's no more rational than the human mind, which is often quite irrational. Your body isn't the product of medical school, nor intelligent design, but rather random natural selection, which is decent but demonstrably far from perfect.
> It's no more rational than the human mind
Neither is a car, but I still take it to get checked out when a warning light is on.
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
AIUI one of the many quirks of the US health insurance system is that a lot of people have only minimal cover which doesn't include things like physiotherapy and rehabilitation treatment. That means that they often can't treat a painful condition at source so their only option is to mask the pain with painkillers.
This is so absurd to me. The expression "prevention is better than cure" isn't just folk wisdom, in just about any country with nationalized healthcare the studies also confirm that this costs less money. The only exception I ever heard was a Dutch study in the 2000s suggesting that people growing older due to smoking less was going to increase healthcare costs, because people were getting older putting pressure on t…
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Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#328Really lovely article. In paramedicine we usually treat 10g of acetaminophen in a 24-hour window as a potentially fatal overdose. That's also why the law in Australia was changed to require acetaminophen to come in blister packs (harder to get each pill out) of no more than 16. At 500 mg, that only gets you up to 8 g if you eat the whole thing, which is still hopefully non-fatal. I always thought a simple over-the-co…
I randomly bought NAC just to try it. I dont know about the chemical interactions, but going out with collegues at that time taught me that it's basically impossible to get drunk. Usually a pint of beer is enough to make le feel at least a little dizzy, but when taking NAC, it was all like drinking water
If you all think NAC is great, wait till you try liposomal glutathione (glutathione is one of the things NAC is a precursor for, one of the general take-out-the-trash compounds for your cells). Of all the supplements I’ve tried, it has probably the most immediately noticeable positive effect (maybe because you take it by leaving it under your tongue to be absorbed sublingually for a bit before swallowing). Generally leaves me feeling great, even if I was kind of dragging and tired beforehand.
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#329Anectdotally, I had a headache, and the woman I was seeing in the UK said get the paracetamol unless it was killer, then get the Nurofen (ibuprofen) if I needed the heavy-duty medicine.
Re: Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
#330Without resorting to research or statistical inference engines, based only on the average knowledge explained by my colleague OP, I will say that paracetamol is also toxic in continuous doses (people with chronic pain who resort to the medication for daily use) and has drug interactions with other agents (such as alcohol).
Aspirin and Ibropufen are great but really do have a risk of ulcers. As for the thrombo-prophylactic issue, it is very poorly explained and I completely disagree. My readings to date have shown that both have a very slight rebound effect on the formation of thrombi and the main problem is the release of thrombi that have already formed, prior to the use of the medication.