It was great to hear today that deaths from paracetamol overdose (and thus liver failure) have dropped dramatically since legislation was passed to limit the number that cold be bought at any time. There is an article on the BBC News website about it.
What I'm not so happy about is that the lead researcher seems to think that there should be further reductions in the number of pills anyone can buy at a time, and even that the amount of active ingredient should be reduced.
Time out!
Paracetamol is pretty bloody useless as a painkiller anyway. Its the very ineffectiveness of it that makes it so dangerous when people are trying to self-medicate serious pain. Sticking plaster on a slashed artery comes to mind. I recently had a serious infection in my sinus that made every tooth on one side of my mouth scream in agony. Luckily I had some serious pain meds available to me that I knew were safe, or I would have been in a very poor state and probably not able to make rational judgement.
So if its so damned dangerous, pull it from sale. I'm tired of half-way measures on half-effective treatments.
If its not that dangerous, then stop penalising me for people who cant be bothered to read or understand the warnings on the packet.
Paracetamol has varying effects on different people. If you take a lot of paracetamol over time, then you become inured to its effects as a painkiller - which means it becomes as good as useless. However, if you've taken paracetamol rarely, it can be really effective. So a good way to handle the drug is to take it only when you absolutely need it.
ReplyDeleteAll the above is well known to doctors... of course there are the oddball exceptions to the rule.... ahem...