over-the-counter pain reliever poll

wow i really spelled acetaminophen wrong didn't i

i spell it paracetamol, which is what i voted for. only take the others if i need an anti-inflammatory or if i'm alternating during horrendous toothache

i'm ecumenical

it's not that i feel strongly, it's just that's what seems appropriate to the purpose

I've avoided acetaminophen for years because I heard it was bad for your liver if you drink all the time... but I've since been told that it's fine to have one or two now and then, just don't take like ten a day. So I have a bottle for headaches and the like

Ibuprofen for muscle aches.. daily baby aspirin for the old ticker, but not pain relief. Naproxen makes my stomach upset

Sorry to see no topical rubs like Ben Gay, Icy Hot etc.

Poll also neglects Doans Pills!

https://d25f87opgd5a05.cloudfront.net/Products_489091_B764_0103142503.jpeg

Ibuprofen has been my mainstay for years, it works well for me. But it can give me an unpleasant stomach burn if I take too many or on an empty stomach, so I'm careful with it. One thing in recent years I've realized it works well for is sore throats, I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to take painkillers for that before. Fortunately I don't have those too often. Mostly it's for muscle/head aches, probably average a couple pills a week.

Mangnesium salicylate is basically the same thing as asprin anyway btw.

I avoided NSAIDS for years until our country banned the OTC sale of codiene, since then my goto is a combo of 2 x paracetamol and 2 x ibuprofen, works a treat.

BTW why do they call it acitamenot[dfdfjsfg in the US?

I regularly use the Excedrin migraine formula -- acetaminophen plus aspirin plus caffeine. At the slightest feeling of a headache I take this and it miraculously stops the migraine from coming on.

I don't take anything. I left the Catholic church more than 35 years ago but the allure of suffering never leaves you.

Pretty much Tylenol. Steady and reliable for me.

From wikipedia:

Both paracetamol and acetaminophen are contractions of chemical names for the compound. The word paracetamol is a shortened form of para-acetylaminophenol,[173] and was coined by Frederick Stearns & Co in 1956,[174] while the word acetaminophen is a shortened form of N-acetyl-p-aminophenol (APAP), which was coined and first marketed by McNeil Laboratories in 1955.[175]

Seems that both names were coined within a year of one another by competing US pharma companies. Turns out that McNeil was also the originator of the brand name Tylenol, also in 1955. McNeil was bought by Johnson & Johnson a few years later. Seems probable that their marketing muscle didn't just make Tylenol a household brand, but also established the in-house "acetaminophen" coinage as the widely accepted US generic name for the active ingredient.

Obligatory health alerts: taking an overdose of acetaminophen/paracetamol (far in excess of painkiller doses) will biochemically destroy your liver, to the point that transplant is the only treatment. And sustained use of ibuprofen increases your odds of cardiovascular disease appreciably. I guess that’s why I take both, but I try not to go above 2 a day for either since I am dealing with chronic shit.

I took exclusively ibuprofen during my childhood/teenage/college years and then at some point in my 20s for reasons lost to time switched to exclusively paracetamol (I'm USAian and I say "acetaminophen" but paracetamol is easier to write)

I keep hearing that ibuprofen and acetaminophen are toxic and damaging in pretty much any amount and should generally be avoided. But at this point I don't know how much of that is an overabundance of caution vs. real danger.

yeah I've taken up to 8 paracetamols a day for lengthy periods and while I'm sure no one recommends it, it didnt do me any damage tbh.

Even my gastroenterologist says 2-3 times a day is fine.

advil but i try to use it sparingly (ie no more than once a week) for the reason matttkkkk lists

I don't know how much of that is an overabundance of caution vs. real danger.

The trade-off in so many things. But I think reducing pain in the moment is worth a lot too. Pain hurts.

And how :(

I do do the classic 600mg ibuprofen--1000mg acetaminophen combo for tooth pain, but that's only about every 3 months or so.

can i just say this is a classic discussion point for our aging user base :D

i only ever use paracetamol. i've tended to find others i've tried irritating for my stomach.

ibuprofen is the smoothest for me and doesn't induce the sleepiness of paracetamol. When I was a teenager there was a trend for mixing paracetamol with booze (to make it stronger, lol!) and the memory of glugging from a bottle of red wine with disgusting white floaty fragments of paracetamol makes me feel queasy.

Paracetamol doesn't have any sedative properties, wth!?

it can have sedative affects on some people, it does on me.

Calpol seems to reliably knock out babies

Different pain relief for different ailments. For most headaches, 1000mg paracetamol initial dose followed by 500mg. For back/shoulder/tendinitis, Naproxen. I brought a massive bottle of Aleve back from the US because naproxen is prescription only in the UK. Ibuprofen a distant memory because I only ever took it for menstrual cramps. If none of those work, or for pneumonia, co-codamol is OTC in the UK. Naproxen and co-codamol seem to help with sleep if I’m taking them for something else. I almost never take aspirin.

I used to get a lot of headaches as a kid and aspirin did nothing. Paracetemol has been my mate for ages.

Do people ever take a couple of paracetamol before bed with a glass of water after a few drinks? I'd only do it once a year like if I have to be up early or have a busy work day but it is an incredible hangover reducer. Assume terrible for the liver but we all have to treat ourselves from time to time.

I got really bad headaches as a teenager right through to about the age of 25. They’d last days and I would feel like crying if I woke up and one was still happening. They just stopped one day!

xp I personally wouldn’t just from having it drilled into me as a teenager that You Don’t Do That You’ll Ruin Your Liver but as you say…

My former best friend used to take like four paracetamol at a time, claiming two “didn’t work”, must have been on the Brian Lenihan Sr plan.

I actually have some Advil soft gel capsules I bought in America and have never used, bought them for himself who is a vegetarian. Free to a good home? Ibuprofen hasn’t ever worked for me, paracetamol only.

Oh, and aspirin before long flights.

up until about 10 years ago I could count on one hand how many headaches I've had - I rarely even get them with hangovers, though had a period in the last decade of being plagued with migraines, but that has stopped now. It's my ropy dental work and a broken crown that occasionally I need pain relief for. Careful brushing of teeth 3 times a day is no substitute for having essential dentalwork done - that incidentally - you need a fucking dentist for!

Do people ever take a couple of paracetamol before bed with a glass of water after a few drinks?

Have absolutely done this with ibuprofen. Rare because it’s rare that I have to worry about hangovers these days, but my impression is it helps. (Although a quick medical google tells me this is bunk and doesn’t really make a difference 🤷‍♂️)

You can only get low quality weak-ass cocodamol OTC, you still need a scrip for the good stuff

nothing works for me except ibuprofen with the behind the counter pseudoephedrine

Oh yeah, when I'm congested it's pseudoephedrine all the way. Downside is I can't take it past about 2 p.m. because it'll keep me up half the night.

Tend to avoid paracetamol b/c it reminds me of my suicide attempts. Take it in Lemsip form, mostly - if I need to swallow pills I'll go for ibuprofen.

Paracetamol/acetaminophen is the one in this list that's not an NSAID, so it's safer to take more frequently. It doesn't reduce inflammation, but I find it effective for many kinds of pain.

Sometimes inflammation is bad, other times it's a normal part of the tissue-healing process, so taking lots of NSAIDs isn't necessarily helpful with certain kinds of injuries. That said I've had decent results with ibuprofen when dealing with serious muscle pain (e.g., torn hamstrings). It's supposed to be hard on the liver, so I use it less than I used to.

I haven't used Aleve much, but my wife finds it more effective than acetaminophen for sciatica and arthritis pain. It too is unkind to the liver.

Aspirin, once a wonder drug, is now underrated. Good for headaches, not as bad for the liver as other NSAIDs, but rough on the stomach lining if taken too often.

tl;dr OTC pain meds are good not bad

ibuprofen is the ace pitcher but naproxen can be a surprise reliever in a tight spot

Ibuprofen has been my mainstay for years, it works well for me. But it can give me an unpleasant stomach burn if I take too many or on an empty stomach, so I'm careful with it.

my dad used to take 800mg ibuprofen pills because of work, developed a few stomach ulcers as a result. be careful out there!

In Britain this beast used to be available over the counter, now it's in that liminal space between over the counter and only available by prescription which is; in the chemist's but you have to ask for it. They give you a brief Q+A, ask if you've had it before, warn that it's addictive etc. Usually it's on display behind locked glass cabinets. I think it's now the same for all Codeine products. Nothing comes close. Saved me from death's door flu a few times.

https://lloydspharmacy.com/cdn/shop/files/2772101_b76456d5-44d8-4e69-a1eb-9851e59ec081_730x.progressive.jpg

Yeah my mom was put on a big daily dose of ibuprofen for something or other and ended up with a bleeding ulcer. Definitely a risk.

Ibuprofen is the standby in our house, because my wife has long been wary of acetaminophen (although we keep some of that on hand for cases where it would be prudent to alternate). I've don't have a problem with aspirin, but I've never taken it very often either.

I've only taken naproxen sodium on a few occasions when it was recommended by a doctor for some reason or another.

Xpost reminds me of the story of the Stooges in London in the ‘70s discovering they could buy all the codeine they wanted down at the corner chemist. Good times were had.

I've recently/suddenly started having hip issues that I think is arthritis, and I'm trying to find the sweet spot of which med and how often. I don't want to overdo it. Lately it's been a dose of Arthritis Strength Tylenol before bed and 400 mg of ibuprofen during the day. Sometimes I switch those up, and I can't really tell which is working better yet. My sympathies to anyone dealing with chronic pain -- this is a mental grind and it's only a mild problem for me so far.

Aspirin, once a wonder drug

A smallish study in scandinavia showed that low dose aspirin may reduce the risk of colorectal cancers in people who have a genetic marker for it. I think aspirin is probably more of a wonder drug than we realize, but as one of the study's authors said (I paraphrase) "it's hard to fund large clinical trials for a drug that costs 99 cents a bottle." Deep pockets pharma has no interest

https://www.asco.org/about-asco/press-center/news-releases/new-findings-aspirin-and-risk-colorectal-cancer-recurrence

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the aceto/ibu combo prep is my go to prep for my muscle/joint difficulties which suddenly became much more protracted at age 57.

i prev didnt need em to much, tho i’ve had my hip screwed back together, my collarbone screwed back together (then partially sawed off), my femur screwed back together. i’ve broken my right clav four times. my scapula once. My skull once. i dont take opiods they make me ill.

too

Fever/migraine? Acetaminophen
General pain/joint or muscle aches? Ibuprofen

For the occasional headache, aspirin works best for me. One tablet is usually enough. For bringing down a fever, I usually go with Tylenol. For serious pain, none of them really work.