Was replying to a commented which was downvoted to death entirely unfairly, so I'll paste my reply as a new comment:
Paracetamol/acetaminophen (the active ingredient in tylenol) is super toxic to the liver. Lots of people overdose on it, some by accident and some deliberately. As little as FOUR GRAMS can cause jaundice and fuck up your liver. If you have a fever, taking 1 gram every couple of hours might seem entirely reasonable, but it can kill you.
Regardless of any autism links, it's good to be careful with this stuff.
Without chronic ingestion of medications that compete for glucuronidation or certain CYP450 inducers like antiepileptics, FOUR GRAMS even as a single dose is virtually impossible to cause any harm.
One gram every 2 hours is 12 grams which is on the lower end of toxic doses.
Despite common belief, concurrent alcohol consumption surprisingly does not increase risk, since alcohol competes for CYP2E1 and reduces the rate of production of the toxic metabolite NAPQI. Similarly for chronic liver disease. The use of NSAIDS (ibuprofen, etc) with cirrhosis is absolutely less safe than tylenol at therapeutic doses.
Taking one gram every 5-6 hours for a maximum of 4 gram/day IS entirely reasonable.
I don't know how you jumped from "it's dangerous to take in to high amounts, even 4 times the recommended dose is dangerous" to "the recommened dose is dangerous".
When taken correctly it is very safe and had fewer side effects then NSAIDs like ibuprofen.
So in summary: taking 4x the recommended dose of a medication is dangerous?
How many other medications would that apply to? Countless, I imagine. That’s why we have dosages on every bottle.
paracetamol is unusual in this respect, that the toxic dose is so close to the therapeutic dose, but the benefits outweigh the risks.
after I had dental surgery, I took paracetamol and ibuprofen in alternate doses every 4h - I would have been in screaming pain if I couldn't have both as an option.
Maybe by FDA-type standards, 4x is "close", but to me, I would think it absurd to take 4x the recommended dose of something unless directed to by a doctor.
I was recently prescribed 800mg ibuprofen for an injury, where 200mg is the standard OTC dose, and I even questioned that.
you'd be surprised how casual some people are with doses. my old grandma had a big bag of medication she had collected over the years and occasionally she'd sit down and pick a couple like smarties and gulp them down.
when my dad decided to step in, he took her to a doctor to get a full review and confiscate the bag.
I don’t understand these responses.
A person in power makes unsubstantiated (and often disproven claims), and makes major decisions that affect all our lives based on those claims.
And the response ignores the fact that the people in power are making decisions based on complete nonsense and pointing to something fairly trivial that everyone knows about anyways.
I mean, I haven’t been to a doctor who hasn’t pointed out that there are limits to how much acetaminophen one can take. There’s a reason anything above a 650mg dose is prescription only. Theirs is a reason if you’re suffering from a severe fever doctors will give you both acetaminophen and ibuprofen and have you alternate them.
If there is a tiny minority that is apparently unaware of the fact that Tylenol in high doses can have adverse effects or at the very least not even aware of the fact that most medications need to be taken as prescribed or within the suggested limits, that’s a minuscule part of the problem relative to people in power making decisions based on unproven claims.
Taking so much paracetamol so often will totally lose its effect after 2-3 doses. If you continue, then it's considered suicide attempt zone.
Taking 1 gram every couple of hours does NOT seem entirely reasonable when the directions on every Tylenol bottle in the world say to take no more than 1g (2x500mg caps) every FOUR HOURS at most and no more than 4g per 24-hour period. Half the bottle is covered in ominous red warnings about liver damage.
It’s like saying jumping on subway tracks when there’s no train is entirely reasonable when there are ample warnings on the platform to not do that.
“ Regardless of any autism links” - there you go again with the innuendo. My dude if you want to warn about how dangerous Tylenol is in and of itself when misused, go right ahead, but leave autism out of it, you’re playing right into the “Tylenol cause autism” fearmonger’s hands.
Some of y’all have never worked a blue collar job in your lives and it shows.
Most of the blue collar coworkers I've had knew full well that you just needed to add some hydrocodone into the mix and you'd be fine w/ a few hundred mg on the acetaminophen for a full shift.
Hmm, a bunch of high IQ people conclude that it’s dumb as hell to destroy your body for worse wages than coding. Who would have thought?
Why should we feel sorry for the skilled trades again? Mechanics are expert famous scammers worse than lawyer (grandma just replaced her blinker fluid!) That’s just one example. Leak detection companies are nearly all scammers too.
No, I haven't, but that doesn't absolve people of their responsibility in actively deciding to chronically overdose on pain meds, if that's what they're doing.
What’s your point here?
>Paracetamol/acetaminophen (the active ingredient in tylenol) is super toxic to the liver
This is very true. ( and no, he is not exaggerating)
Tylenol itself is not toxic to the liver, the metabolite of glucuronidation is what is toxic. Which means paradoxically impaired liver function can actually reduce the effective toxicity of Tylenol.
Fair enough.
I mean, sure, but the most important part you left out: "if you take 4x the recommended dosage, or take it consistently beyond the recommended period of use".
Lots of drugs are toxic if misused or abused. Acetaminophen is not unique in that regard.
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>Even if RFK Jr. provides ironclad scientific proof of this link they'll just deny it.
As far as I know he is really well read/informed - most people are not in that league and such people are completely dismissive of anything that is counter-narrative.
As far as I know he's a crackpot who makes up random shit that has no basis in science. Sometimes that random shit is correct, because as we all know, a broken clock is correct twice a day.
Suggesting he's well-read and well-informed is laughable.
>As far as I know he's a crackpot who makes up random shit that has no basis in science.
Well for me then you are in the category of most people. Ill read/informed and will parrot what mainstream 'science' has to say. Anything that one says that is against the common narrative in medicine is struck down by the 's' word. You can laugh at me.
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