I get what you're saying, but ibuprofen and acetaminophen save lives. The problem is the western (American?) tendency to self-medicate and to over medicate with really potent stuff. That shouldn't be as normal as it is.
In fact, i cannot think of any disease that literally kills. Even with the big stuff like cancer or aids, it is always the symptoms that get you. They damage body systems and the decline of those systems (aka symptoms) eventually causes the cardiac arrest or internal bleeds that shut off nutrients to the brain. Those symptoms are just as lethal no matter thier cause. A massive fever that stops normal body chemistry, whether caused by flu or ebola, will kill you just the same.
For those talking about hyperthermia killing, yes but in almost all those cases the cause is not an infection.
In fact, I would say that paracetamol kills a hell of a lot more patients than it actually ‘saves’.
A study I have taken to heart is that permissive hyperthermia (up to 40 deg c) in ICU patients has a greater survival than those where fever is treated aggressively.
Physiologically, this resonates because high temperatures activate the immune system and raised temperatures are non-optimal for bacterial proliferation; so the immune system is primed by fever; suppressing it can dull immune system response.
In fact, malaria was used as a treatment for syphillis in the early parts of the 20th century because high temperatures kill spirochetes. There are also a decent number of case reports of cancers going into remission following fever.
However in my quick mobile google then I could only see the following study that demonstrated no advantage for either control of permissive hyperthermia group in ICU patients; so perhaps I was relying on a study that has been superceeded.
You don't want to stop a fever ~ just keep it within the safe zone where it's healing, but not dangerous.
And an acetaminophen tablet is a painkiller. While your statement is in fact true, ibuprofen is still a better choice for a fever. The latter is also generally considered a safer alternative, especially in long-term use — even though alternating the two would be ideal.
On top of that numerous recent studies have shown many potential problems.
https://www.webmd.com/drug-medication/news/20150302/does-lon...
> Heavy use of acetaminophen is associated with kidney disease and bleeding in the digestive tract, the paper reports. The medication also has been linked to increased risk of heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure, the study authors noted.
> One cited study even showed that overuse of acetaminophen can increase a person's risk of early death as much as 60 percent, the study authors found.
What's wrong with cannabis-derived solutions, again?
Also, FWIW, in the past, I tried both CBD and THC without any luck where Ibuprofen helped so it's certainly not 1:1
What forms did you try? What brands? Were they lab tested?
Like any "new" drug - there's a lot of nonsense floating around.
Please don't simply buy CBD capsules from Walmart, and say "this shit doesn't work for me".
And others.
True or not, parent wasn't just making up the empathy-painkiller association.
(Even though it's clearly not net-helpful due to the serious physiological side-effects.)
That's amazing!
... why isn't there more research on isolating this particular side-effect?
To me and his parents this was pain management gone way over dose! But we’re not medical experts and should not be doing clinical decisions since at one end of this rabbit hole you will find anti-vaccination and other nut jobs.
So what to do?
There is nothing wrong with opiates being used for acute pain relief. They are a modern miracle when put to such uses.
The problem comes when you start using them for long-term pain relief - a use-case in which they are neither appropriate or effective.
A typical 2-3 day prescription after major dental (or other) work is not remotely a problem, and I really have no idea why this is where the focus is. It's always been long-term abuse as the actual problem - the weird overreaction over a few days use for acute pain is utterly absurd and only hurts people in some bizzare way for folks to feel they are "helping" fix the abuse problem.
I had Oramorph for abdominal pain (in hospital, no surgery thankfully). The condition may have been caused by medium term use of Ibuprofen (in my non-medical opinion).
One thing is not to put medicines, OTC or not, into the trash. They are nasty stuff to have in the dump.
As for the drugs: don’t take analegics if you don’t need to; do if you can’t tolerate the pain. Everybody has a different level of pain and tolerance and I bet the prescription said something along the lines of “...as needed”
As for other prescriptions, do your research; odds are you do need it but not always.
My recommendation is to go and talk to your doctor and confront him or her with this "finding".
Also, most importantly, this "finding" has been out for almost a year now. I wonder what's the more recent development on it.
These doctors don’t just give pills out randomly, they do it for a reason based on evidence and science. A side note is that my pharmacist made it very clear to only use the painkillers as necessary. You should always consult the doctor and pharmacist after major surgery to clarify these things if needed.
IMHO the doctors should prescribe less at first and see if it would be enough, but I also get that they are overcrowded and the same patient coming back for just more painkillers might be a little too much.
Regarding opioid based pain-killers... for all the negative attention they get, they're also usually fine for most people - when used as directed and, again, for a short-period of time.
Not everybody who takes a few Oxycodone tablets winds up addicted and then reduced to using heroin to get their fix.
I finally caved and then took a half dose right after the extraction because I was fearing terrible pain, especially since the surgeon said mine was a fairly difficult job that would probably end up causing more pain than is typical.
The half dose of painkiller made me extremely nauseous, and so I decided to just try the 800mg of ibuprofen, and it did the job perfectly. I did feel a little sore and stiff, but never in pain unless I waited too long for another ibuprofen dose. It was the same for my girlfriend, who was also prescribed the pain killer but didn't take it because she didn't feel she needed it either.
The pain killer being prescribed didn't bother me per se, and neither did the recommendation, and I don't think anything nefarious was going on. Also, everyone's body is different. But given the side effects, and potential side effects, I just felt that even a simple "we recommend you get this prescription filled, but please see how the ibuprofen works first, and only take the pain killer if you can't handle the pain on ibuprofen alone" would have been a better way to handle it.