5 ms·

When I was a kid aspirin was used for everything, from a headache to fever, etc, now no one uses it anymore, and everyone uses paracetamol and ibuprofen instead

by drKarl 4y ago

When I was a kid aspirin was used for everything, from a headache to fever, etc, now no one uses it anymore, and everyone uses paracetamol and ibuprofen instead...

jeffparsons 4y ago
It's shocking to me how we still refer to paracetamol and ibuprofen in the same breath when their relative risks are so different.
- onethought 4y ago
  What risks are you referring to? I think the fact that for most people there is almost no risk is why they are mentioned in the same Breathe
  - jeffparsons 4y ago
    For most people oxycodone presents very little risk, and it is an extremely effective painkiller. But for some people it will ruin their lives, so (at least in Australia) it is tightly regulated. It's the risk of seriously damaging a small subset of people even if they stick strictly to the recommended dosage that I find strange. Maybe that's the case for a lot of medicines and I'm just less aware of those. But I see people popping ibuprofen like candy and I don't think many of them have even considered whether they might be in that small group of people that definitely shouldn't touch it.
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >It's shocking to me how we still refer to paracetamol and ibuprofen in the same breath when their relative risks are so different. And it's shocking to me how we still refer to paracetamol (Acetominophen for us USAians) and ibuprofen in the same breath, when paracetamol might as well be a sugar pill, for all the good it does and ibuprofen is the liniment of the gods!
  - drKarl 4y ago
    Right, I'm European.
    - nobody9999 4y ago
      I figured. I added "acetaminophen" because most USAians wouldn't know what "paracetamol" was if it came up and smacked them upside the head.
  - simianparrot 4y ago
    Ibuprofen being an NSAID is high risk for anyone who’s had stomach ulcers due to its risks involved in causing GI bleeding. For people like me it’s simply not even an option.
    - nobody9999 4y ago
      >For people like me it’s simply not even an option. Good. More for me. ;) More seriously, you're absolutely right. Which is why even folks who can take ibuprofen should only do so within appropriate limits (IIUC, 2400mg/day maximum). I have spinal issues (disc degeneration, stenosis) which have, in the past, caused serious amounts of pain. If that pain is acute and not too serious, ibuprofen has been a life saver for me. Naproxen sodium, acetaminophen and other NSAIDs have absolutely no effect on me. Without ibuprofen, my life would be a nightmarishly painful endeavor. And so, while I do understand your circumstance (which sucks because NSAIDs are wonderful as analgesics, it's a shame you can't use them), those who ibuprofen can help is a much larger pool than those it harms. Hopefully, one day we'll discover/invent analgesics which don't cause GI issues. If that pain (usually sciatica) becomes chronic, ibuprofen isn't enough. When that's happened, I've ended up having epidural steroid injections[0] which knocks out that inflammation post-haste. [0] https://paindoctor.com/faq-epidural-steroid-injections/ https://paindoctor.com/faq-epidural-steroid-injections/ Edit: Fixed typo, removed extraneous text.
      - wiz21c 4y ago
        I totally concur. Got a condition comparable to yours and ibuprofen makes a real difference whereas paracetamol just doesn't do anything. Dunno why.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  Are they? Maybe acetaminophen (i.e. paracetamol) is many times more dangerous than ibuprofen, but still, in absolute terms it must be low if used according to guidelines. I mean, most people don’t know anyone who has died or been injured from acetaminophen, so from most normal people’s everyday perspective it simply does the same thing as ibuprofen, regardless of whether that’s scientifically correct. Thus it’s easy to understand why people talk about them in the same breath.
  - szundi 4y ago
    Having a bad liver at old age. Is these issues contribute to earlier death? Can it be proven to linked to paracetamol? No. So we know nothing basically
    - _2uwr 4y ago
      Having a bad liver will mean its not capable of generating enough glutathione. Paracetamol is a state licenced poison which depletes the body of glutathione. In order to replenish glutathione or help the liver recover from state licenced poisons like alcohol and paracetamol, take/increase cysteine. Some other experts will step in and say its hard to absorb from the gut so take N-Acetyl Cysteine aka NAC, but what they dont tell you about the acetyl part is it stimulates immune cells which then cause their own problems namely inflammation. Acetic Acid which is the Acetyl part of NAC lowers the GI of food, which is why adding vinegar to food is useful at reducing the blood sugar spike and used to be used in some diabetic conditions. The immune cells attack the sugars except starch. Ironically the liver also needs glucose to make glutathione, so what I havent established is this. Do we feed off our own immune cells or do we simply excrete them through the usual methods or a bit of both? If we are not catabolising and feeding off the immune cells which have attacked the food we have eaten, is our immune system helping us to stay slim and healthy? On the subject of aspirin being a COX inhibitor, so are Omega 3's. Omega 3's interact with the COX enzyme's so their Nett Effect is tantamount to being a COX inhibitor! Omega-3's also reduce inflammation but they take several weeks to months to have a noticable effect, in which time, weather can improve which is cited as the cause of the improvements. Short term once or twice use cases, Aspirin can be useful, but if anyone is needing to consume anti inflammatories like Aspirin, consider looking into dietary changes which can also reduce inflammation, like increasing Omega-3 intake. On the point of the indoleamine dioxygenase, there are many enzymes which can target cancer, copper will increase some of the InterLeukins which modulate the immune response. It is handy to know that aspirin slows the breakdown of the amino acid tryptophan into its metabolite kynurenine by inhibiting associated enzymes called indoleamine dioxygenases, or IDOs. I'll have to try taking some aspirin with some tryptophan on an empty stomach or protein free meal so that the tryptophan is not crowded out by the handful of amino acids typically found in meat and other protein sources at the blood brain barrier, in order to see if it will improve my mood. Blue light exposure via the eyes is needed to increase the serotonin in the brain according to some studies.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  Which is riskier? One comment says it's paracetamol, another says it's ibuprofen..
  - morsch 4y ago
    He's probably referring to paracetamol's narrow therapeutic index[1]. 1 paracetamol may relieve your headache, 10 will do lasting damage to your liver, or even be fatal[2]. It's kind of nuts. Of course, Ibuprofen is not without (GI) issues, but I don't think it kills as many people as paracetamol does. [1] The therapeutic index (TI; also referred to as therapeutic ratio) is a quantitative measurement of the relative safety of a drug. It is a comparison of the amount of a therapeutic agent that causes the therapeutic effect to the amount that causes toxicity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index [2] Paracetamol toxicity is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, and accounts for most drug overdoses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Paracetamol overdose results in more calls to poison control centers in the US than overdose of any other pharmacological substance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol
    - paulpauper 4y ago
      Paracetamol toxicity is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, yup people are shocked when they learn it is good ol' Tylenol that is killing people or making them deathly ill, not those evil steroids or opioids hyped by the media. That is not to say those are not dangerous, but paracetamol is way easier to accidentally overdose. Taking to much of an oral steroid at once will not cause liver failure. Neither will too much codeine.
      - jeffparsons 4y ago
        Okay, I need to revisit my position. Now I'm shocked that _both_ paracetamol and ibuprofen are available "off the shelf" (without talking to anyone). I wonder if people in general are or were always as blasé about the risks of easily obtainable medicines as the people around me seem to be today. Could trust in government regulations to protect us from harm have the side effect of eroding personal responsibility? Or could the era of click-through EULAs and warnings on everything etc. be training people to not bother reading any instructions/warnings? ("This product contains water, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects.") I'm rambling. Maybe I don't have a coherent point. But something bugs me about it.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  Yeah, take too much paracetamol and you die, literally, of liver failure, which is not that hard to do. Take too much ibuprofen is survivable. Taking 20+ ibuprofen at once will give you nasty stomach ache but you will probably not die. The fact people do not know this difference is why overdosing is such a big problem with paracetamol-based pills. They look identical yet one is pretty much a toxin...it very easy to confuse them.

by drKarl 4y ago

When I was a kid aspirin was used for everything, from a headache to fever, etc, now no one uses it anymore, and everyone uses paracetamol and ibuprofen instead...

jeffparsons 4y ago

It's shocking to me how we still refer to paracetamol and ibuprofen in the same breath when their relative risks are so different.

onethought 4y ago
What risks are you referring to? I think the fact that for most people there is almost no risk is why they are mentioned in the same Breathe
- jeffparsons 4y ago
  For most people oxycodone presents very little risk, and it is an extremely effective painkiller. But for some people it will ruin their lives, so (at least in Australia) it is tightly regulated. It's the risk of seriously damaging a small subset of people even if they stick strictly to the recommended dosage that I find strange. Maybe that's the case for a lot of medicines and I'm just less aware of those. But I see people popping ibuprofen like candy and I don't think many of them have even considered whether they might be in that small group of people that definitely shouldn't touch it.
nobody9999 4y ago
>It's shocking to me how we still refer to paracetamol and ibuprofen in the same breath when their relative risks are so different. And it's shocking to me how we still refer to paracetamol (Acetominophen for us USAians) and ibuprofen in the same breath, when paracetamol might as well be a sugar pill, for all the good it does and ibuprofen is the liniment of the gods!
- drKarl 4y ago
  Right, I'm European.
  - nobody9999 4y ago
    I figured. I added "acetaminophen" because most USAians wouldn't know what "paracetamol" was if it came up and smacked them upside the head.
- simianparrot 4y ago
  Ibuprofen being an NSAID is high risk for anyone who’s had stomach ulcers due to its risks involved in causing GI bleeding. For people like me it’s simply not even an option.
  - nobody9999 4y ago
    >For people like me it’s simply not even an option. Good. More for me. ;) More seriously, you're absolutely right. Which is why even folks who can take ibuprofen should only do so within appropriate limits (IIUC, 2400mg/day maximum). I have spinal issues (disc degeneration, stenosis) which have, in the past, caused serious amounts of pain. If that pain is acute and not too serious, ibuprofen has been a life saver for me. Naproxen sodium, acetaminophen and other NSAIDs have absolutely no effect on me. Without ibuprofen, my life would be a nightmarishly painful endeavor. And so, while I do understand your circumstance (which sucks because NSAIDs are wonderful as analgesics, it's a shame you can't use them), those who ibuprofen can help is a much larger pool than those it harms. Hopefully, one day we'll discover/invent analgesics which don't cause GI issues. If that pain (usually sciatica) becomes chronic, ibuprofen isn't enough. When that's happened, I've ended up having epidural steroid injections[0] which knocks out that inflammation post-haste. [0] https://paindoctor.com/faq-epidural-steroid-injections/ https://paindoctor.com/faq-epidural-steroid-injections/ Edit: Fixed typo, removed extraneous text.
    - wiz21c 4y ago
      I totally concur. Got a condition comparable to yours and ibuprofen makes a real difference whereas paracetamol just doesn't do anything. Dunno why.
School-Cotton 4y ago
Are they? Maybe acetaminophen (i.e. paracetamol) is many times more dangerous than ibuprofen, but still, in absolute terms it must be low if used according to guidelines. I mean, most people don’t know anyone who has died or been injured from acetaminophen, so from most normal people’s everyday perspective it simply does the same thing as ibuprofen, regardless of whether that’s scientifically correct. Thus it’s easy to understand why people talk about them in the same breath.
- szundi 4y ago
  Having a bad liver at old age. Is these issues contribute to earlier death? Can it be proven to linked to paracetamol? No. So we know nothing basically
  - _2uwr 4y ago
    Having a bad liver will mean its not capable of generating enough glutathione. Paracetamol is a state licenced poison which depletes the body of glutathione. In order to replenish glutathione or help the liver recover from state licenced poisons like alcohol and paracetamol, take/increase cysteine. Some other experts will step in and say its hard to absorb from the gut so take N-Acetyl Cysteine aka NAC, but what they dont tell you about the acetyl part is it stimulates immune cells which then cause their own problems namely inflammation. Acetic Acid which is the Acetyl part of NAC lowers the GI of food, which is why adding vinegar to food is useful at reducing the blood sugar spike and used to be used in some diabetic conditions. The immune cells attack the sugars except starch. Ironically the liver also needs glucose to make glutathione, so what I havent established is this. Do we feed off our own immune cells or do we simply excrete them through the usual methods or a bit of both? If we are not catabolising and feeding off the immune cells which have attacked the food we have eaten, is our immune system helping us to stay slim and healthy? On the subject of aspirin being a COX inhibitor, so are Omega 3's. Omega 3's interact with the COX enzyme's so their Nett Effect is tantamount to being a COX inhibitor! Omega-3's also reduce inflammation but they take several weeks to months to have a noticable effect, in which time, weather can improve which is cited as the cause of the improvements. Short term once or twice use cases, Aspirin can be useful, but if anyone is needing to consume anti inflammatories like Aspirin, consider looking into dietary changes which can also reduce inflammation, like increasing Omega-3 intake. On the point of the indoleamine dioxygenase, there are many enzymes which can target cancer, copper will increase some of the InterLeukins which modulate the immune response. It is handy to know that aspirin slows the breakdown of the amino acid tryptophan into its metabolite kynurenine by inhibiting associated enzymes called indoleamine dioxygenases, or IDOs. I'll have to try taking some aspirin with some tryptophan on an empty stomach or protein free meal so that the tryptophan is not crowded out by the handful of amino acids typically found in meat and other protein sources at the blood brain barrier, in order to see if it will improve my mood. Blue light exposure via the eyes is needed to increase the serotonin in the brain according to some studies.
nextaccountic 4y ago
Which is riskier? One comment says it's paracetamol, another says it's ibuprofen..
- morsch 4y ago
  He's probably referring to paracetamol's narrow therapeutic index[1]. 1 paracetamol may relieve your headache, 10 will do lasting damage to your liver, or even be fatal[2]. It's kind of nuts. Of course, Ibuprofen is not without (GI) issues, but I don't think it kills as many people as paracetamol does. [1] The therapeutic index (TI; also referred to as therapeutic ratio) is a quantitative measurement of the relative safety of a drug. It is a comparison of the amount of a therapeutic agent that causes the therapeutic effect to the amount that causes toxicity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index [2] Paracetamol toxicity is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, and accounts for most drug overdoses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Paracetamol overdose results in more calls to poison control centers in the US than overdose of any other pharmacological substance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol
  - paulpauper 4y ago
    Paracetamol toxicity is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, yup people are shocked when they learn it is good ol' Tylenol that is killing people or making them deathly ill, not those evil steroids or opioids hyped by the media. That is not to say those are not dangerous, but paracetamol is way easier to accidentally overdose. Taking to much of an oral steroid at once will not cause liver failure. Neither will too much codeine.
    - jeffparsons 4y ago
      Okay, I need to revisit my position. Now I'm shocked that _both_ paracetamol and ibuprofen are available "off the shelf" (without talking to anyone). I wonder if people in general are or were always as blasé about the risks of easily obtainable medicines as the people around me seem to be today. Could trust in government regulations to protect us from harm have the side effect of eroding personal responsibility? Or could the era of click-through EULAs and warnings on everything etc. be training people to not bother reading any instructions/warnings? ("This product contains water, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects.") I'm rambling. Maybe I don't have a coherent point. But something bugs me about it.
paulpauper 4y ago
Yeah, take too much paracetamol and you die, literally, of liver failure, which is not that hard to do. Take too much ibuprofen is survivable. Taking 20+ ibuprofen at once will give you nasty stomach ache but you will probably not die. The fact people do not know this difference is why overdosing is such a big problem with paracetamol-based pills. They look identical yet one is pretty much a toxin...it very easy to confuse them.