American here: I know paracetamol is acetaminophen, but how much is a packet?
Various countries limit painkillers to small packet sizes (e.g. 20 pills here in Germany) and pharmacies only hand them out one at a time, so you can’t overdose as easily/spontaneously, either like the person in the post did due to pain, or for suicidal purposes.
It’s not perfect protection, as you can just go to multiple pharmacies to buy multiple packets, but yeah, you will have to actually go do that and will get told at the pharmacy that you shouldn’t take more, if you’re not aware.Yikes! The use of the term “packet” was initially confusing to me. Here in the States it’s not uncommon to see small packets of a single dose of over the counter medicines in gas stations and convenience stores for when you’re not at home and something comes up. The directions for extra strength Tylenol are 2 every 6hrs (1000mg dose) not exceeding 3 doses per day.
I was thinking “4 packets over 3 days, what’s the big deal?”
Worth noting as well that the OP said four packs a day for three days.
i heard some people fitness takes these so they can train excessively longer than normal. it was a news article a certain group was discussing, and they were tellinig a story of a dude doing that, that guy got addicted for sure to the pain meds, because they said he couldnt do anything without them.
they sell blister packs for tyelenol, but its usually thr brand name, which is pretty expensive.
America… I remember seeing “value packs” of Tylenol containing 300 pills… that’s their idea of freedom… to allow people the choice of slow and agonizing suicide by liver failure
The bottle on my shelf has 350 (new, Costco brand) but I don’t take over the recommended dose for obvious reasons. Guess it expired last year now that I look heh. The smaller bottles cost more per dose so no reason not buy a larger one. This is in Canada, not the US for people curious about other countries.
That math doesn’t quite add up. Sure less per dose sounds good, but if you’re wasting half the bottle then paying a little more per dose but less total cost is still more economical.
i buy the larger ones online. better than buying the small ones. i do this for anti-histamines too, because i got allergies, i can get 1000tablets for the 1st generations easy, and cheaper pricing for the 2nd generation ones years worth. kirkland has the quality to it, im trying some off-brand(probably chinese made) doesnt seem as effective, and it was a wierd shape.
It may be less effective but you use it till the bottle is done, it’s not like milk it still works.
I wouldn’t do that because i can’t find any information on what that stuff breaks down when it ages and whether toxicity actually goes up over time
they sell larger bulk bottles, usually i buy them on amazon, in-stores are usually more expensive. i also use naproxen too.
Ironically, for America, this is one area where you are expected to read the label and not be an absolute idiot.
Exactly, I know I can take 2 a day and a couple days and if the pain persists I ought to seek out medical help.
We know how to follow directions, we’re just not fucking gonna
kids were trying to robotrip on dextrotomorphan, and now they require ID to buy any cold medicine that contains it.
I don’t think there’s a standard size, but I know they sell them in packages of 3x10 where I live. Eating 4 full packets of those in a day would put you at 15 times the upper recommended daily dosage, for what it’s worth, which is calculated slightly conservatively to not be lethal for any adults
You can also often get high-strength pills for chronic pain that are 665mg instead of the regular 500mg.
I believe I’ve seen them sold in 1g pills where I live as well.
the ones for arthiritis, is around 625mg, with caffiene. i had 500mg naproxen Rx for buristis once, it can cause stomach issues, because it turns on inflammation, so the acid levels increase and can cause things like heartburns.
Reading the meme it seems like a packet is five times the dangerous dosage.
Depends on the country I guess.
Here, a packet is 16 tablets of 500mg (acetaminophen) or 200mg (ibuprofen).
We’re limited to 2 packets combined per purchase to reduce the chances of severe overdose.
Package dosing generally suggests 2 tablets per dose, with at least 4 hours between.
Or one tablet for children between 10 and 14.paracetamol packet
It looks like it’s a sheet of 6-8 pills
https://www.nps.org.au/news/paracetamol-ibuprofen-combinations-for-acute-pain
according to the acetaminophen i’ve got at home, dangerous dosage is >4g per day. that means that if 4 packets was 20x that, each packet would be 20g, which, if they’re normal 500mg pills, would be 40 pills per packet.
And a maximum of 2g/day if you weigh under 50kg (which not a lot of people know).
you should stick to 3g a day if you’re overall a small person, some bottles will recommend this as the max to be safe
Therapeutic dose of acetaminophen is 15 mg/kg q6h prn. That dose of 4g/day ==> 1g/dose. 1000mg/(15mg/kg) = 66.67kg == 145lb.
That’s the minimum weight for that acetaminophen dosing. If you’re under that weight, you can consider the reduced dose. If you’re over 145lb, no need to worry. And honestly, I think I’m the only one who actually doses this stuff q6h anyway. I think most people end up doing TID dosing because that allows uninterrupted sleep.
3-4000mg is toxic to the liver.
Well, generally you’re only supposed to take ~2 tablets at a time, so 10? 40 pills a day is 13,000mg of acetaminophen, or 20,000mg if they’re extra strength.
That’s, uh, bad. You’re recommended to take under 4000mg per day, so that’d be a bit over a packet? Makes sense to me.
For the record, mixing two painkillers without consulting a doctor is also usually a bad idea but way fucking less of a bad idea than taking 13000mg of tylenol in a day. Afaik, acetaminophen with other stuff is probably fine but napoxen, ibuprofen, and aspirin all work roughly the same way and shouldn’t be mixed.
For the record, mixing two painkillers without consulting a doctor is also usually a bad idea but way fucking less of a bad idea than taking 13000mg of tylenol in a day.
Basically, if something hurts so much that you might take enough paracetamol/acetaminophen to fuck with your liver then you yes, you should be under a doctor’s care. That said, between my wife and me, we’ve had three or four doctors over the years all be very chill with the idea of alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen after surgery or the like. I guess they work on such different chemical pathways that they don’t have much interaction potential, and keeping under the daily dose of Tylenol in particular is incredibly important, as we’ve seen in this thread.
tyelonol works on the liver, the others like ibuprofen, naproxen,etc works by inhibiting the cox1 and 2 enzymes. of courses take 2 much of the inhibitors is very similar to aspirin, it can prevent clotting(which in itself is a therapeuthic uses for clotting disorders)
They act on different systems, yes, but this is more about the metabolism of each.
Non-steroidal-anti-inflamatorirs can cause damage to your stomach and kidneys.
Acetaminophen/Paracetol metabolizes in the liver a similar way alcohol does, and like alcohol has a maximum rate of clearing the toxin.
yes, you should be under a doctor’s care.
That’s not always an option, unfortunately, but it’s definitely accurate.
Don’t take my word for it but I think paracetamol and ibuprofen with added codeine can be taken together despite the double codeine as the amount they have is low enough that double is still safe.
Check with a pharmacist first, dosages are going to vary and I am just some guy on the internet.
holy fuck how did that guy make it to adulthood without braincells…
Pain is a hell of a drug, and if the first time you’ve had pain so bad you’d shoot yourself to make it stop is terrifying.
but then you combine differently acting painkillers, not just take 20 times the safe dose of one O.o
like Ibuprofren and Paracetamol can be safely combined up to their allowed doses, which is what I did after surgery, spaced them out to half-time between each other’s next allowed pill 🤷
It sounds like you’ve never experienced the pain I’m describing.
That, and tooth pain is particularly bad.
I had a wisdom tooth come in, smash itself against the molar next to it, and then start grinding the nerves together.
Literally blinding pain, like my vision went white and it overrode every other sensation in my body.
That being said, what ultimately helped me cope was a maximum does of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Fair warning, I am not a doctor, and I was a young healthy man with no liver issues. I was able to take both at the same time and it cut the pain. The two meds work in different ways that compliment each other. This is not a long-term solution, this was to last 3 days for a dental appointment to have both teeth pulled.
It’s bizarre to me that someone can make it to adulthood without knowing that paracetamol specifically is no fucking joke.
Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is definitely tough on the liver. I remember during EMT classes (well, I kinda remember, was 20 years ago) having one of the paramedics in the class talking about how it was worse on the liver than heroin. Now yes, heroin obviously has other downsides, but it’s just crazy to think about. I have always limited my intake of it, never take it if I’ve been drinking, that sort of thing. The issue is that it’s not exactly common knowledge. I know plenty of people who would drink and take some Tylenol at bedtime to kill the hangover. Not a good habit.
It’s not common knowledge?
It’s common knowledge, in the same way that “you shouldn’t text and drive” is common knowledge. People know it, and ignore it
Not in the US.
On an informal survey of several hundred men aged 18 to 60 at or below the income cutoff for recieving free medical insurance from the state they were living in, less than 10% knew Tylenol was bad for your liver at all and just over 25% knew that long term ibuprofen use was bad for kidneys.
The number goes up when income does, but considering the number of people working for minimum wage over here…
We have a culture of ADVERTISING medication here, every possible attempt at minimizing public knowledge of medical side effects is made at every legal turn because fear cuts profits.
Edit – I should add that I’ve met multiple educated people who heard that the Brits had some super dangerous liver killing over the counter painkiller that they just LET people have who were glad we didn’t allow that kind of nonsense here.
Very few people know what paracetamol is and would be surprised to learn it’s another name for Tylenol.
I would say most people are like this. Knowing it’s super dangerous in high doses is the minority because it’s sold OTC and everyone knows and trusts it.
not everyone studies drugs
there is a stark difference between “studies drugs” and “does the bare minimum research on the pharmaceuticals one puts into their body”
I was taught this as an actual child because it’s so important and paracetamol is so common. It’s nothing to do with “studying drugs”.
It is absolutely imperative that you understand the safety profile of ANY substance entering your body.
I was about to make a joke about understanding the safety profile of the air you breathe, and then I remembered I work near various chemicals… Mfs have mixed clorox and lysol at my workplace before. Safety is no joke
not following safety is frequently funny, almost no safety procedures are funny, not following safety wins.
People look up resources on them and see that the recommended max dose of ibuprofen is lower than paracetamol per day in weight of the active ingredient and stop reading.
They don’t get to the part about how the effect per weight isn’t the same. Or how damaging paracetamol can be for the liver if you take it regularly or go over the recommend limit. Heavy drinkers especially don’t take into account the extra stress on their liver, which is a contributor to the 400-500 deaths it causes every year in the US alone.
Meanwhile ibuprofen makes you feel sick and want to vomit once you start to go over the recommended limit. And if you reach that stage, you basically just stay hydrated to keep your kidneys going and wait for it to pass. Since it usually takes another 2-3 times as much to for the severe effects to occur.
To quote Scrubs:
Dr. Cox: Did you just page me to ask me how much ibuprofen to give Mrs. Lenzner here?
Sunny: Well, I was worried it would exacerbate the patient’s
Dr. Cox: It’s ibuprofen! Here’s what you do. When she wakes up, get her to open her mouth nice and wide, then get some of those ibuprofen pills in your hands and throw them at her. Whatever sticks in there, that’s the correct dosage.
And in the pilot episode, it was J.D. and regular strength Tylenol.
Not “even paracetamol”. ESPECIALLY paracetamol.
Tylenol/acetaminophen/paracetamol is both weak ass painkiller and really dangerous because the overdose line is low. Here they put it in synthetic opioid drugs, it doesn’t help with pain but does make them more dangerous.
It’s good at reducing fever
Opioids are fir suffering whereas acetaminophen is for pain signals. A combination of ibuprofen and acetaminophen have been demonstrated to be the most effective pain killer we currently have.
Pain and suffering are different things.
It might not get you high, but it absolutely does help actual pain when combined with opioids.
oh yea it isnt as good as other otc nsaids, like ibuprofen and naproxen, or aspirin. oh and that fake pseudoephedrine mimic(phenyleprine) for cogestion, they already said it has no effect whatsoever. its mostly the 1st generation antihistamines doing all the work for your sinuses when you have the cold anyways.
isnt as good as other otc nsaids, like ibuprofen and naproxen, or aspirin
The do different things. It all depends on the type of “pain”.
I mean… Yeah. There are instructions on the packet. They aren’t supposed to be eaten like candy.
even vitamin gummies can be overdosed to a dangerous degree. Hell, even too much water can kill you, it’s difficult to achieve but it can flush out all the nutrients from your body. Always make sure to know how much of anything is safe to put in your body
Yup. I had a buddy give himself Vitamin A poisoning from eating gummy multivitamins like they were candy.
not vitamin A but i personally can’t have the vitamin C megadoses available in pharmacies. Apprently my body needs less vitamin C than most people, normally it’s very hard to have too much of it, but when i take a megadose like 1000mg (daily recommended is ~100mg) i get incredibly painful stomach cramps, whilst everyone around me is just fine
oh yea it causes the runs, and kidney stones. it doesnt seem as severe as vitamin A toxicity.
vitamin A specifically is toxic. not so much for vitamin D, since people are very deficient in vitamin d.
- don’t be an idiot and 2) read the leaflet
Sounds like a messaging problem, despite the idiocy (or rather, because idiocy is the default). Like, I’m not silly enough to eat 4 boxes of paracetamol a day, but I’ve also read maybe 3 medication leaflets in my entire life, and I’ve been on literally dozens of antidepressants and antianxiety meds. I basically scan over the leaflet to see what sort of dick problems I can expect 😆
It’s like the Terms of Service of an iTunes update. No cunt is reading that shit. People just know “i make click i get music”, and “i swallow lump of chalk i feel better”.
The leaflets aren’t even written for laypeople to really understand them. Besides being in a 1pt font, they’re written in something bordering on legalese but with medical terms. “Contraindications”?? The fuck am I, Beatrice Pharmacist the inventor of pharmacism? I don’t blame people for getting 2 sentences in and giving up.
That said, the dosage is on the front of the box, and that should be enough for even the most imbecilic person. But if you lose the box and just have loose blister packs lying around for a year, you might go off the rails a little when the tooth pain kicks in.
It’s also the case that something as “basic” as paracetamol being such a widespread and easy-to-buy medication causes a strange lack of respect for its potential danger. Like “pop a pill when you have a headache” is so second nature to us. It becomes a non-threatening intervention that only becomes less threatening the older you get, because it’s just… there. So you don’t even feel the need to check the leaflet for side effects and such, because it’s ‘part of the furniture’ of our lives. This is the messaging problem I alluded to. You really gotta think about the dumbest person alive, and then aim for someone twice as dumb as that.
Sounds like American healthcare to me.
You either cope, and probably cause irreparable hard to yourself, or you go to the clinic or ER and get labeled a drug seeker.
Americans don’t call it paracematol, they call it acetaminophen or just tylenol. This is from the UK.
In LATAM the 3 are well known names for the same active medicines
Oh, shit! Guy OD’d on acetaminophen? Yeah, that is scary. My wife had a friend that attempted a self KO with Tylenol for some reason. What a horrible way to go. She is so lucky she didn’t need a transplant.
fun fact, when you mix sinus medicines your blood can test positive for methamphetamine.
I know this because I am now on a list of meth addicts at every networked hospital after an er visit while treating a sinus infection.
they took four blood tests and “confirmed” I was high on meth and refused to treat why I was there in the first place because to them, I was high as shit. even though I was literally directing people around blood on the floor and calling for housekeeping to come clean up the blood on the floor because the nurse refused to do her fucking job.
I asked to be removed from the list as well as have the false test results removed from my history and was told that’s impossible.
doesn’t technology make things so much better? Now the best pain meds I’ll ever get at a hospital will be extra strength Tylenol. you know, that shit I have at home they charge me $400 a pill for.
Pseudoephedrine is the main ingredient in meth, that’s why they changed all the OTC sinus stuff to phenylephrine years ago, and why the OTC stuff doesn’t work worth a damn anymore.
Everyone’s discussing ODing on OTC pain meds but the bigger part of this story is why he’s in so much pain for so long without being able to see a Dr and receive treatment for chronic pain.
Some people are just stubborn about seeing doctors. My guess is that this is a british guy, and dental coverage under the NHS is spotty at best
How big is a packet?
I think in UK paracetamol is sold over the counter in 28 x 500mg tablets most commonly. Larger packs or higher strengths are prescription only I think.
So 1 pack should last 3.5 days at the max adult dose of 8 per 24h - but I think it’d recommend seeing your doctor if you get into a second pack and you’re still using that maximum dosage.
Generally shops will limit sales to 2 packs, but it’s easy to shop around so that’s no limit.
I don’t know where you’d get packets of 28x500mg.
oops my memory failed.
It’d mostly be in 16s in the supermarket. So each pack is probably 2 days at the max dose.
Asking the real questions.
Kinda surprised you didn’t give some it answer
Yeah, I think this is what’s causing the confusion here. We don’t measure pills in “packets” in the US, so I think some people are taking “4 packets” to mean that they only took four pills and of course that’s absurd.
Off the shelf in the UK, they’re sold in packs of either 8 or 16 tablets, and shops are legally only allowed to sell you two packs at once. Pharmacies can of course supply larger quantities with a prescription.
The recommended dose is one or two 500mg tablets every 4 hours with a maximum of 8 tablets per day.
ok that helps. Over here you can get a bottle of 100 or more at one.
I try and avoid painkillers whenever possible for two reasons:
- They’re crazy addictive
- They build tolerance, and when it comes time where taking them is unavoidable, I want them to work as well as possible.
You wont build a tolerance unless you’re using it constantly. A few days for a pain a few times a year is meaningless for tolerance. As long as you RTFM, the hospital dose will always exceed your tolerance.
This doesn’t apply to opioids but I’d argue people make too big a deal about those as well, just don’t do them outside a prescription nor recreationally. You’re probably more addicted to taking a shit every now and then unless your life is already in the drain.
Neither of these are true for acetaminophen/paracetamol though?
Not that I would know, but don’t all medications build up tolerance?
Like, I was under the impression that medicinal benefits are like a side-effect to what the body might otherwise consider a foreign pathogen. Does acetaminophen not trigger any immune response?
With some exceptions for medications that use the immune system to target therapy (such as monoclonal antibodies) or drugs that target the immune system specifically, there is no immune response to most medications.
You can build a tolerance to both of those things, but their painkilling effectiveness is just not as strong as opiates.
Both of those are the same thing, and any chance of developing tolerance is very low.
Sorry, I was very tired - however, having taken ibuprofen for years - 2 pills will not give me the same pain relief as it did 10 years ago. I have to up it to 3, or 4. I’m not sure if this is tolerance or an increase in inflammation resulting in a need for a higher dose (hoping not).
In the US, the FDA tried to limit how strong the individual capsules can be (325mg), but you can still buy it in 500mg strength. There are mandatory warnings on the label, but you can buy it in 500-tablet (at 325 or 500) bottles over the counter. It took almost 60 years before the FDA did anything, so a lot of people grew up thinking it was harmless.
Best friend’s wife almost died like that. Was in a coma for 3-months until a transplant came through.
I think what’s extra dangerous about Tylenol is that it doesnt feel like it’s doing anything. When it works, some minor pain goes away, or maybe your fever goes down. But there’s no side effects that you really feel, so I bet people get a false sense of security with it. Like, oh it isn’t giving me opioid euphoria, or knocking me out. And you can just buy as much as you want, no restrictions. It must be perfectly safe.
Tylenol: that’s a brand of paracetamol for non US people.
Nothing is perfectly safe. You can kill yourself with water poisoning, and that’s pumped directly into your house.
deleted by creator
There is a brand mixing acetylsalicylic acid and koffein which works wonders as a quick relief for migraine while my standard naproxen usually requires a few hours of darkness to start working, so I can’t agree that all over the counter meds are garbage. I can’t refute your placebo claims since the effect cant be measured by myself
deleted by creator
It’s why in the UK shops won’t sell more than 2 packets at a time. It’s statistically reduced the amount of people killing themselves with them (intentionally or by mistake).
It’s OTC right? What’s stopping people from visiting multiple pharmacies?
Inconvenience
It is stupid scary how a lot of what prevents people from doing the most outlandish shit is just being designed in a way that is mildly inconvenient.
It’s also utterly depressing that the reason things don’t improve is usually just because making those improvements would be mildly inconvenient in the meantime.
Studying wildlife conservation, and a lot of the studying on presenting findings to the government for policy decisions or to Garner public support is how to make it sound convincing. The key to it is to make it more convenient that whatever they are currently used to doing. That’s it. If you can do that, you’re almost guaranteed to get your policies passed.
This is the reason why medication that can be used for self harm (including death) comes in blister packages and not in bottles.
Its inconvenient, and takes enough time to give your brain some more time to think
Nothing. However it adds a layer of difficulty to acquiring more. That, for a lot of people, is enough.
Technically nothing but even the fact that it is limited is a deterrent for buying too much, plus people are too lazy to visit multiple pharmacies.
It’s people like this who make other people think any amount of painkillers is bad, and seem to get a sense of superiority about them for never taking any.
Even a little acetaminophen makes my liver feel funny the next day. Ibuprofen actually works for pain relief for me (migraines mostly) but it can cause stomach ulcers. Painkillers are definitely not something you can just use without thinking, and daily use especially can fuck your body up, ibuprofen is also hard on your kidneys.
Take the minimum effective dose as infrequently as possible.
did you ever check your liver? that doesnt sound normal. with a small dose.
nsaids can cause bleeding and ulcers if itsa high dose. its because it inhibits cox 1 and 2, for clotting, and it works on your stomach by turning off inflammation, so your stomach can combat the acid with more mucus and cell turnover(inflammation increases cell turnover), thats why h pylori is a thing.
