Over-the-Counter Medications

Aspirin is a pain & fever reliever. It reduces bleeding and the risk of fatal heart attacks. America was rushing to local drug stores as soon as it was developed. A lot of people abuse it, because people figured that if a normal dose helped well, then a larger dose would work super well. Aspirin side effects include stomach distress to 2-10% of users, rises the percent of blood clotting, and Reye's syndrome (which is confusion, irritability, nausea, and SOMETIMES death). Another pain and fever reliever that is being abused is ibuprofen. Nausea, indigestion, heartburn, weight loss, rash, nervousness, headache, dizziness, sleepiness, and loss of appetite are some side effects. Like aspirin, people take too much for better results. Who doesn't randomly ask for a aspirin or an ibuprofen when their head hurts and their starting to get annoyed? The thing is, it's so easy to just take an aspirin (or ibuprofen or whatever) and just forget about it. That works too, you just can't take too much too close to the same time.

Did you know that you can get poisoned from taking too much of certain ingredients in medicine? People are ending up in the hospital because of acetaminophen poisoning. Acetaminophen is also called Tylenol, and a lot of people have Tylenol in their medicine cabinets. Acetaminophen can cause increased liver failure and death; it's one of the more toxic medicines that you can put in your liver. It's just a normal effective painkiller though, just like aspirin and ibuprofen; but like all other medicines, you just can't take too much of it. An acetaminophen overdose works like this: the large dosage overwhelms the liver, your liver turns the excess into toxic chemicals, and they kill liver cells. Once you lose enough liver cells, your liver can fail. There is an antidote called N-acetylcysteine, and it works to counteract the over dosage if you take it within 12 hours of when you overdosed. Over dosage can be even more dangerous when you're drinking, because then your liver has to fight off two things. Did you know that doctors think that over $500,000 could be saved in a hospital if the people who overdosed on purpose would stop? Acetaminophen is also used as a suicidal drug.