Most, if not all, medication would carry a poisonous symbol, if it were not taken out of regulation for that. Mostly, you kill organs by any overdose.

Roughly:

- Paracetamol overdose can cause severe liver damage and may be fatal.

- Ibuprofen in high doses can lead to kidney injury and stomach bleeding.

- Aspirin overdose may result in salicylate poisoning, causing ringing in the ears, confusion, and metabolic acidosis.

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formerly_proven 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

- Metamizole has a tendency to kill some percentage of native Brits and their descendants. Yet globally it's one of the most popular painkillers, it's even OTC in countries with sufficiently low numbers of British and related people. (Has anyone ever done research to try and figure out why Brits are on the order of 1000x-10000x more sensitive to that side effect?)

	▲	K0balt 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Brits are on the order of 1000x-10000x more sensitive to that side effect? That is wild. If true, it would have to be genetic? I mean, unless it is chronic dehydration from their sense of humor?

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kuschku 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's why it's recommended to combine a half dose of ibuprofen and a half dose of paracetamol at the same time. (Plus some vitamin C)

Together they have higher pain killung effects than each alone, and the side effects are reduced as they affect different body parts. And the vitamin C reduces the damage to the stomach lining.

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bryanlarsen 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Or if you need stronger painkilling you can take a full dose of paracetomol and either ibuprofen or aspirin. OTOH aspirin and ibuprofen use the same pathways so combining a full dose of ibuprofen and aspirin is not recommended.

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jeroenhd 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Aspirin and ibuprofen are both NSAIDs with not too dissimilar pathways, so combining them won't be as effective as combining either with paracetamol. They'll both do their jobs, but if the ibuprofen is already doing its job, aspirin won't have much work left to do.

Meanwhile, taking ibuprofen can negate the effect aspirin has when taken against cardiovascular diseases. Not a huge problem if you're just taking it as a painkiller, but not everyone can combine the two. That's another potential reason to take paracetamol over some NSAIDs, though you should obviously consult a doctor if you're taking prescription medicine of any kind.

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dark-star 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting, then why does Aspirin do almost nothing when I have a headache, while Ibuprofen works very well and very quickly?

	▲	basisword 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Headaches have different causes.

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jasperry 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That's very interesting about vitamin C, I never heard that it can reduce stomach lining damage. It's surprising because things with vitamin C tend to give me heartburn, I assumed because they were acidic. Do you have any references?

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anjel 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Adding to this, its the margin between a therapeutic dose and a harmful dose is most relevant. That margin for aspirin is wide, the same effective vs toxic margin for paracematol is shockingly narrow. Furthermore, the "aspirin is rough on your stomach whereas Tylenol is gentle" turns out to be McNeil Marketing puffery.

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Terr_ 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Any medicine can be poison" is kinda missing the point.

There is a rich and varied multidimensional field of danger, from aspects like the safety-margin between regular/dangerous dose levels, the chronology of how it can spike or accumulate, whether there's feedback in advance of damage, etc.

Yeah, I can poison myself drinking clean water, but it's hard.

	▲	baxtr 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Thank you for this comment

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hdgvhicv 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You can overdose on water and oxygen too. What’s your point?

	▲	wildzzz 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's pretty hard to overdose on water unless you're in some state like extreme dehydration where water consumption needs to be overseen by a doctor. Unless you're talking about drowning, then you're just being silly. As a healthy adult, drinking too much water until the point that you're injured is hard to do. You likely need a mental disorder to ignore simple signals like "my stomach is very full right now". Whereas OTC medications can be very easy to overdose. If you don't read the instructions and regularly take more than recommended, you can injure your liver or other organs. Pills are not very big so a handful of them can easily be in the LD50 area. Oxygen toxicity is not a risk for most people. You either are a scuba diver regularly working at depths beyond what most do or are taking supplemental oxygen while under the care of a doctor. You are not at risk of oxygen toxicity reaching into your bathroom medicine cabinet.