I'll switch to Ibuprofen now. They didn't give me any prescription meds because there were no broken bones, but my chest and left shoulder are in so much pain, specially when I wakeup. Airbags were deployed, and I went from 84 mph to zero when the crash happened (dashcam had the speed on it).
In some ways it's a relief to hear from someone else with that experience (this was 20 years ago for me).
Maybe it also increase stomach acid production, but my understanding is that the primary problem is that it thins the protective stomach lining.
Ibuprofen is a non-selective inhibitor of the COX enzymes. Inhibiting COX-2 reduces pain and inflammation. Inhibiting COX-1 inhibits stomach lining growth and the clotting process. Pharma has created selective COX-2 inhibitors, but some of those have run into their own problems (blood clots leading to myocardial infarctions in the case of Vioxx patients who weren't also on aspirin, IIRC... though, an increase in MIs would seem to be the natural and obvious side effect of intentionally reducing COX-1 inhibition. IIRC, the increase in MIs was in contrast to the traditional Ibuprofen treatment, not compared to an unmedicated baseline.)
Food also helps but not 100%. IME it does not seem to "soak up" all of the excess acid. Vitamin C is also not 100% but IME more effective than food.
I'm not a frequent or high dose user of NSAIDs, I just seem to have an easily irritated stomach.
They work in different ways, so using them together can let you stay well away from a harmful dose of either and still get better pain relief that taking a maximum dose of just one.
I somehow injured my rotator cuff, an injury normally associated with athletes but that I somehow got while sleeping?! With my doctor's permission, I did 1000 mg of acetaminophen every 8 hours and 400 mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours. The later was originally going to be 800 mg every 8 hours, but I asked if I could do it 400 mg every 4.
I’m curious why no one here mentioned aspirin though
Both have very tight margins between normal dose and overdose. If I remember correctly overdosing is 50% over the normal dose. So take couple more pills a day than it says on the label - and you can land in the hospital.
I was super glad for that info, because I treated instructions more as a suggestion. Now I am much more cautious. _Never_ go above what's instructed, use them as instructed (before/after a meal, etc.), do not mix drugs unless explicitly allowed by your doctor and for the love of god do not mix medicine and alcohol. It's too easy to overdose these common drugs.
I don't want to downplay it, I just felt like "50%" sort of suggested a single extra Tylenol might kill you, which is very unlikely.
Once you’ve depleted your liver’s glutathione stores (too much tylenol, too much alcohol, not enough food to replenish glutathione) then the Tylenol becomes very toxic to liver tissue.
From what I’ve gathered, you can detect some liver damage as you get close to 10g per day, but we’re talking mildly elevated ALT/AST enzymes. But if you’re sick, or drink a lot or not eating, you could see serious toxicity at 200% of the maximum daily dose.
No, it's closer to 100% over the maximum daily dose. (maximum daily dose is 4g, toxic dose for a single ingestion is 7.5-10g.)
https://www.health.harvard.edu/pain/acetaminophen-safety-be-...
https://www.medscape.com/answers/820200-27208/what-are-the-m...
There's a protocol where you switch between them which is okay, but you should get the good stuff if you need it.
Ibuprofen is awful for your kidneys. You should go back and demand more appropriate pain relief instead of CYA bullshit from a doctor.
If you're taking Tylenol, one thing you can do to help protect against liver damage is to take a milk thistle supplement.
Problem is, NAC can be quite rough to take - nausea, vomiting, etc.
Paracetamol is usually the safest option. I only take Ibuprofin in serious cases or when there's infection.
Hope you get well soon