11 replies to this topic

[knightly]

Hello,

 

PLEASE NOTE:
* I am NOT in any way saying anything negative towards Paracetamol, and love that its available BUT at the same time, its such a weak medicine and the only OTC medicine (of course there's also Asprin).

 

 

Question:

Paracetamol is extremely safe, but to the liver it is highly toxic. But why at such a low effect (that it products) its so toxic to the liver, and as a return the only medicine available to buy without a RX.

 

Example:
Drinking Alcohol gives you a massive effect, and is really you can compare the effects of Alcohol to Paracetamol. Like you could even use a lot Alcohol to stop real pain, and as a result produces very good effects. But you may not use much Paracetamol at all, and if you do then your liver will die.

 

My point is:
-> WITH ALL THE MONEY THE PHARM COMPANIES MAKE FOR PEOPLE, THEY MUST AND I THINK WE AS PEOPLE SHOULD PUSH THEM MORE TO GIVE MORE MONEY TO MEDICAL RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT OF NEW MEDICINES and more medical power and research to even all the small medical folks that are in small rooms testing stuff and coming up with new things.

 

 

REALLY, THINK OF how scientists came up with MDMA and all the other drugs in the past, you could say it was by accident, but now that well look on the good side, the pharm companies have BILLIONS now, SO they may give more of that money (that they get from us) to scientists researching,developing medicines,etc,etc.

 

With all the money from the pharm companies, they can expand the research and increase the amount of resources that the medical folks have to research.

 

 

Come on guys, we are all so happy and everyone needs to work together to LIVE on this beautiful earth and keep on trucking.

 

What do you guys think?.

 

 

Edited by knightly, 27 July 2014 - 02:42 PM.

[Dorian Grey]

My girlfriend gets cluster migraines and found through trial and error Excedrin (aspirin/acetaminophen/caffeine) worked best for her.  Problem is, she was getting substantial GI side effects as well as having trouble sleeping if she took it late in the day.  

 

I decided to do a study on which components of the drug were actually providing benefit to see if she might be able to get relief without the ASA during the day, or perhaps the caffeine in the evening.  After experimenting with different combinations of the individual components of the drug, we found it was the combination of ASA and caffeine that fixed her headaches and the acetaminophen was basically worthless.  

 

I believe the popularity of acetaminophen is due largely to the war on drugs, and the need for a (relatively) harmless pill doctors can throw at patients seeking pain relief where proper pain medication may not always be warranted.  The highly toxic nature of acetaminophen when taken to excess makes it the perfect thing to REQUIRE compounded with narcotic drugs to prevent abuse/recreational use of prescribed narcotics.  You can't separate the toxic acetaminophen from the narcotic, and if you take more than the prescribed dose, you fry your liver.  

 

Tylenol advertisers point out that Tylenol is used in many prescription pain medications, "so it must be effective"; and over the counter sales of Tylenol surge as people double-up on dosages in a futile effort to relieve their pain. 

 

Patients in pain are a vexing problem for doctors as there are so few drugs that effectively treat it.  Prescribe NSAIDs and the patients get GI symptoms or serious bleeds.  Prescribe narcotics and they become dependent on them.  Acetaminophen is a handy cop-out med to throw at these patients as it does seem to have a small effect for some minor pains.  "Here, try some Tylenol...  Extra Strength!"  It's always the first medication docs will push.  The fact that this is an all but worthless treatment for any substantial amount of pain doesn't seem to matter.  

 

Patients who keep coming back demanding proper pain relief eventually get narcotic drugs compounded with Tylenol to prevent abuse, and what you wind up with is a population of patients that are always getting Tylenol in one form or another even though the Tylenol component of their therapy isn't doing them any good at all, and over time may seriously damage their liver.  

 

A fine mess!  

Edited by synesthesia, 27 July 2014 - 04:57 PM.

[niner]

NSAIDs can cause GI lesions, an effect directly related to their COX inhibition mechanism.  Paracetamol (acetaminophen) doesn't have this problem.  Those GI lesions can kill people; they are not a small problem.  Paracetamol, on the other hand, can exhaust glutathione, leading to serious liver problems, IF YOU TAKE TOO MUCH.  The amount that is "too much" can be made smaller by concurrent use of alcohol.  The FDA has recently taken steps to reduce the dose of acetaminophen in OTC products in an attempt to (partially) address the liver tox problem.  Doctors recommend acetaminophen because it's considered the safest pain reliever.  It has nothing to do with the "War on Drugs". 

[Dorian Grey]

"Doctors recommend acetaminophen because it's considered the safest pain reliever.  It has nothing to do with the "War on Drugs". 

 

Problem is...  Most folks who've tried it say it doesn't really relieve any pain that is more substantial than a mild sunburn.  Ask anyone who suffers from frequent migraines, back pain, arthritis etc.  I really doesn't work much better than a placebo, which may be its primary effect.  

 

Controlling prescription pain med abuse is a big part of the war on drugs, and the toxicity of acetaminophen when used to excess is the primary reason it is added to most narcotic pain meds.  It doesn't really boost their effectiveness at all, so why else would it be added?  

Edited by synesthesia, 27 July 2014 - 10:41 PM.

[Dolph]

Problem is...  Most folks who've tried it say it doesn't really relieve any pain that is more substantial than a mild sunburn.  Ask anyone who suffers from frequent migraines, back pain, arthritis etc.  I really doesn't work much better than a placebo, which may be its primary effect

I tend to agree. Acetaminophen is a very weak analgesic at best. The only use I did find for it is reducing fever, which it does just as well as Aspirin or other NSAIDs for me.
If I have a real headache, let alone backache or shoulder pain I know from experience I'd be just wasting my time with it.

Niner, you are of course right, but "safety" is very relative.
A comparably weak drug with such a terrible therapeutic index and such awful immediate consequences if overdosed only slightly wouldn't be allowed to be introduced by the FDA if a company tried to do so today, let alone for OTC use! And rightly so!
It's an oddity it's now available in bottles of 500 tablets on every corner, at least in the US...

[Gerrans]

My girlfriend gets cluster migraines and found through trial and error Excedrin (aspirin/acetaminophen/caffeine) worked best for her.  Problem is, she was getting substantial GI side effects as well as having trouble sleeping if she took it late in the day.  

 

I decided to do a study on which components of the drug were actually providing benefit to see if she might be able to get relief without the ASA during the day, or perhaps the caffeine in the evening.  After experimenting with different combinations of the individual components of the drug, we found it was the combination of ASA and caffeine that fixed her headaches and the acetaminophen was basically worthless.  

 

I agree totally with this. It took me a long time to discover that aspirin-paracetamol-caffeine pills were the best anti-migraine and anti-headache pills for me. On looking more closely at the research supporting them (there is plenty), I noticed that aspirin-caffeine pills have the same effect as aspirin-paracetamol-caffeine pills. So paracetamol is a thing of the past for me now.

Edited by Gerrans, 28 July 2014 - 04:12 PM.

[niner]

"Doctors recommend acetaminophen because it's considered the safest pain reliever.  It has nothing to do with the "War on Drugs". 

 

Problem is...  Most folks who've tried it say it doesn't really relieve any pain that is more substantial than a mild sunburn.  Ask anyone who suffers from frequent migraines, back pain, arthritis etc.  I really doesn't work much better than a placebo, which may be its primary effect.  

 

Controlling prescription pain med abuse is a big part of the war on drugs, and the toxicity of acetaminophen when used to excess is the primary reason it is added to most narcotic pain meds.  It doesn't really boost their effectiveness at all, so why else would it be added?  

 

I don't buy this, because doctors were prescribing acetaminophen back when they prescribed almost no opiates at all, and now opioids are among the top prescribed drugs in the country, yet doctors still use a lot of acetaminophen.  It's not a great pain reliever- that's why you see things like tylenol with codeine.  It's useful for mild pain and fever, for which NSAIDs used to be the go-to meds.  Considering the known dangers of NSAIDs, it's understandable that doctors would try to replace them with acetaminophen if possible.   I also don't buy the claim that tylenol is only added to codeine to prevent codeine abuse.   Do you really think that a drug company would create a situation where the punishment for abusing the drug was needing a liver transplant?  And that the FDA would go along with it?  And that it would be kept secret?  That's crazy talk.  Look at all the opioids that are on the market now.  I don't think any of them have had toxins added to prevent abuse.

[knightly]

One other thing:
according to the Government, acetaminophen causes thousands of deaths per year from liver damage, WOW GOVERNMENT, really?. Annnndd Guess what?, acetaminophen is also completely useless for treating pain yet its toxic to your liver.

[knightly]

  Doctors recommend acetaminophen because it's considered the safest pain reliever.  It has nothing to do with the "War on Drugs". 

 

acetaminophen is the ONLY available OTC medicine.

 

 

Yes of course there's also Aspirin, but that's also just as useless.

 

 

My main point is:
- THERE ARE ONLY 2 Pain stoppers on the market for you to buy. acetaminophen & aspirin/Advil . These two medicines are from the past (not saying that's bad or anything) but yet they're so toxic to the organs, and at the same time provide zero to little effect.

 

 

With all the money the Pharm companies are making, you would think that they would put some of that money towards developing new drugs and researching chemicals and all that stuff.

 

[knightly]

Also, there's Cannabis that is 99% safe and completely effective.

 

Example:
- You may have people with Cancer that use opiods, and that's GOOD. May they continue to use Morphine to stop their pain, BUT AT THE SAME TIME adding Cannabis for example can greatly (200%+) increase their appetite , stop vomiting & other benefits.

I'm not saying Opiods are bad for Cancer patients, BUT they should be allowed to take Cannabis with their Opiods if they want. So they're getting full pain relief from the Opiod (or in certain situations they use their Opiod), and while they finished with cancer treatments they could use their Cannabis to stop the vomiting and feel hungry and eat.

 

 

Also:

- I have never smoked Cannabis, I don't care about Cannabis, but for the people who do, they are suffering. The Government really needs to pull their finger out of their hole and allow people to smoke Cannabis if they please to do.

THERE ARE EVEN PEOPLE WITH CANCER THAT SMOKE CANNABIS WHICH HELPS THEM, AND THEN THEY ARE ARRESTED AND BROUGHT TO JAIL AND THEN BEFORE A JUDGE, SOMETIMES GETTING MORE JAIL.

 

Complete utter shite.

It shows you folks in the USA, you guys really need to wake up.

Edited by knightly, 28 July 2014 - 07:31 PM.

[MrSpud]

It was when they figured out aspirin could cause ryes syndrome in kids that acetaminophen became the pain reliever that doctors recommended the most for people coming to the hospital. This and the fact that aspirin allergy is fairly common make it safer for a doctor to prescribe for new patients that come to the hospital where they don't know whether they have aspirin allergy or not. Also, some people who have aspirin allergy also are allergic to ibuprofen for some reason. Anyway, for all these reasons, acetaminophen became the pain reliever of choice for people admitted to hospitals. Tylenol marketers spun this fact into an advertisement a long time ago and it stuck. But in reality, Tylenol is weaker than ibuprofen for pain, but similarly effective to aspirin. Tylenol is bad for the liver if used in excess, but not that bad in smaller amounts. Aspirin is rough on the stomach. Ibuprofen is a bit rough on the stomach and can be bad for the kidneys if used in excess. None of the OTC pain relievers is perfect, but they are all pretty safe if used only when really needed.

[MrSpud]

It's actually spelled Reye's syndrome. It can happen when kids have a virus and you give them aspirin.