Visit brilliant.org/scishow/ to get started learning STEM for free. The first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription and a 30-day free trial.
So stupid reality. The England study of NSAIDs well the people they tested that suffered problems took them with massive amounts of alcohol or were meth addicts while the people who took NSAIDs without poisons had not problems at all.
I think it's important to mention that acetaminophen has a much smaller range between an effective dose and a dangerous one than most NSAIDs. (this is called its safety margin). A lot of people don't strictly follow the dosing information on the packaging, which means that NSAIDs are often safer for those patients.
Fever reduction is one of the most common uses of acetaminophen - and even low-grade fevers can cause body aches, headaches, etc. Would be interesting to see how much of the observed effect of acetaminophen can be linked to its fever-reducing properties.
Good question. I have rarely ever taken a pain killer, but when I had covid, I had miserable body aches. After a couple days, I took two Tylenol and it was like a miracle. The fever went down, the aches went away, and I was fine. I never knew that fever was linked to body aches. I haven't taken a Tylenol since, but if I'm ever in pain from a fever again, I won't hesitate to try it.
Yes, 100% reliable for fever reduction regardless of the cause of the fever. It seems that fever intrinsically causes a type of pain -- "febrile pain" -- and you feel better when the fever "breaks".
Low-grade fevers should be allowed to do their jobs, unless there are specific health reasons otherwise for the individual. A fever is the body ramping up the heat to help fight invaders. As long as the fever itself is not doing harm, keep up on the fluids and let the fever work.
I learned this as a child as well. Interestingly, I recently read a book by a doctor challenging that idea. She believes that fever is the invader's way of making the body temperature higher so that it can reproduce more quickly. She claimed that all the research proves that bacteria are not harmed by temperatures slightly above normal and in fact the ideal temperature for reproducing bacteria is in the low 100s. So maybe we've been looking at it wrong all this time.@@MonkeyJedi99
Tylenol has NEVER worked for my back pain, but my doctors kept giving it to me after I had a spinal fusion. It was both painful and frustrating that they kept giving it to me regardless of how ineffective it was. I'm glad someone is researching it's effectiveness for various types of pain. It doesn't make sense to give it for back pain if it doesn't work.
Same! I have recurring back pain, and whenever I’ve taken acetaminophen it’s NEVER helped at all. Once had terrible back pain on a 4.5 hour flight, while pregnant, and with a toddler, but I’d already maxed out how much acetaminophen I could take. Worst. Flight. EVER. I don’t think I’ve taken any for pain since that day.
Perhaps dose was to small or the pain was to big, from what I can say for either muscle or periosteum pains best drug is Dexketoprofen in 50mg/100mg doses but for prolonged use it is not recommended.
Try mixing it with 400mg of advil. The combination of the 2 have similar effects to narcotics but are not addictive. Opioid use for back pain is a slippery slope. It does help yes but the addiction and resulting social implications can be a nightmare
Acetaminophin may have dubious pain relief effects, but one thing it definitely works for is reducing fever. I'm really surprised you don't mention that in a video titled "Does Tylenol Actually Do Anything?"
Its an old drug and since its been used for along time the fda gave them a pass but you could read some articles that say that Tylenol would not pass the standards new drugs have to go through today.
@alittlebitgone Glad I never really trusted it then lol I'm the type to just power through headaches and the like. Some warm tea or honey for sore throats, that kind of stuff. Unless I absolutely need pharmaceuticals I don't bother
My spouse has often said, “You might as well take 2 jelly beans rather than take 2 Tylenol because their pain-killing effects are the same.” I have to agree.
Half of any analgesic is placebo, so whilst it may not be particular potent as an analgesic on its own, it’s a great antipyretic and if you think it works, it does something.
AGREED! Part of the hint: researchers STILL can’t qualify mechanism: how or why it works, only that “it does”. It’s more of a threat to your liver than should be acceptable, considering it has no noticeable effect. Hence it is banned from “on shelf” access in shops where iive
I'm so thankful for this video. Acetaminophen has never worked for me as a pain reliever. As a fever reducer it's been helpful, but as a pain reliever it has never helped me. Most of the physicians I've said this to tend to assume me saying it doesn't work (and that I can't take NSAIDs) is "drug seeking behavior." It's exhausting.
Never worked for me either. The only time it has is when I had a doctor tell me to alternate Tylenol and Naproxen when I had a linear fracture in my finger. That actually worked quite well, better than either by itself. It's always worked well to break a fever though, as you said.
Im actively rejecting of synthetics. Good luck proving that too. Tell em criminal history is public record, maybe look at mine before you start assuming and slandering my character in record writing.
I've been an Ibuprofen guy for years. It has always worked better for me than Acetaminophen. I rarely use things for pain, so it doesn't really matter for me
I'm the same. Acetaminophen never helped me with pain relief. I got use to living with headaches and random pains. The first time I took Ibuprofen was astonishing. Luckily, I don't have any chronic conditions that cause pain so I can take it for the occasional pain without worrying about the side effects.
I’m on naproxen and it does wonders for me. The thing is you can’t really take it all the time unless your doctor tells you to cause you can build a tolerance to it and it doesn’t work like it should. The stuff has really benefited me over the years when my knees and my back are bothering me
I used to be a toxicologist in a crime lab and told my VA doctor I didn't want Oxycodone with Acetaminophen for my broken back and spinal arthritis when the pills contained 1000mg or ONE GRAM of Acetaminophen. This was because I felt it it was bad for my liver and kidneys which had already been damaged by other prescription drugs. He told me not to worry about it. A few months later the FDA demanded the manufacturer reduce the amount to 300mg.
@@destructodisk9074 Buprenorphine, Tizanidine, Baclofen, Lyrica, Ashwaghanda, Valerian root, Kava. These are what keep me sane with all my injuries and scoliosis.
The VA gave me a gram of Tylenol in my IV while waiting for my appendectomy. That was probably the only time Tylenol has actually worked for me. But of course that was a one time thing
One doctor once said, when we have a headache we reach for a pain reliever and a glass of water. He wondered, how often was it the water and not the pain killer that actually made us feel better? Dehydration is a big problem, that no one is looking at, too.
I’ve had chronic pain almost my entire life, and I’ve always been told by doctors that some people are either ibuprofen people or Tylenol people. I was an ibuprofen person - those giant horse pill Tylenol’s they kept prescribing me weren’t doing anything.
I find Tylenol works fine on fevers or as an additive with other medications when my pain is especially bad. But on its own, yeah, it doesn't do crap for me as far as killing pain.
That seems reasonable to me. Tylenol doesn't do anything for me, but Ibuprofen does [though I'm not supposed to take it due to meds I'm on, unfortunately]..
I'm the exact opposite...ibuprofen does nothing for me. That's probably why these studies are inconclusive...each person has to find out what works best for them.
I have definitely found acetaminophen's effects completely imperceptible for most things I've used it for, like stress headaches and minor infections. (As a kid I wasn't totally convinced that painkillers were even real, because my parents kept buying paracetamol and I was too young to understand the difference.) Ibuprofen works for me WAY better. It's night and day. Luckily I haven't got into any chronic pain yet, so I've never taken enough to cause side effects.
My experience, too. Good old aspirin or ibuprofen works for me. Acetaminophen has no effect, but I will keep it in mind the next time I have a craniotomy.
That’s super interesting cause for me I’ve typically found acetaminophen worked for most stuff for a good while but ibuprofen never really did, now I can’t even take NSAIDS cause of it doesn’t mix well with my other meds I already take.
I've found acetaminophen and pretty much all NSAIDs to either do nothing or so little it's completely imperceptible. Even with minor body aches it doesn't seem to help. The only thing that has actually helped me is hydrocodone and kratom which the first is obviously an opiod and the latter working on opiod receptors (I honestly don't know much about how it works), I'd say that they both work atleast 100x better. Would anyone else say that it works 100x better or is my body/brain just weird?
You were skeptical of medication as a child? That’s amazing. I give medicine to my child and they say “I feel better!” and I’m like “What? You just swallowed it. Give it more time 😅”
It seems to work best for CNS pain such as headaches and nerve pain. It also appears to have a synergistic effect with NSAIDs. In my own experience, it helps relive migraine pain better than an NSAID alone.
Yeah, that's about all I use it for. Dehydration/caffeine headache, nerve damage pain (bad car wreck), and fever reduction. If the pain has to do with inflammation (which is just about everything else) I take the drug that specifically reduces inflammation.... Works like charm every time.
Nerve pain comes in a couple different flavors though, tylenol might help a small area that was injured but stuff like neuropathy is famously tricky to treat (not even opioids work for it sometimes!)
I've found that the modern anti-migraine medications work best for me - quickly. I've been lucky in that I'd average a true migraine around once per year, randomly, not a seasonal one that'd be likely allergies and hence, not a migraine. And oddly, after the third time I've gotten the anti-migraine medications, I've not had a migraine since and it's now been a touch over a decade since my last one. Flip side is now I get far more frequent scillinating scotoma, typically ever couple of months, but those last around 20 minutes and rarely cycle into a chain (say, once to twice a year an episode might repeat, leaving me nonfunctional visually for half an hour to 45 minutes (aka, I can read with only great difficulty in comprehending what I'm seeing)), zero pain, still have aura. The body, don't have to understand it, but one does have to live in it.
I’m a chronic pain patient. Acetaminophen caused problems with my liver enzymes. After my PCP allowed me to use single ingredient opioid pills, my liver went back to being happy and my pain was still kept down to a dull roar. I try to avoid NSAIDs due to their own side effects.
Back pain, had to take codeine/paracetamol drug. So sever pain that i had to take the max 4000mg/day of paracetamol to get the maximum of amount of codeine. Yeah yeah, shouldn't take more then 3000mg per day but that's bull. Just need to be monitored. And as the doctors didn't want to up the drug into more potent opiate (the nordics and the backwards mentality that suffering precedes good pain management), i was liver tested every six months. Three years later finally got my back surgery and could kick the pills. 6 months after that, my liver tests were still screaming red for the stress test. Good thing i didn't drink at all during the time....
@@CrochetIsLife54 yea even the fentanyl crisis is no excuse, give ppl what they need and ODs will continue but so will ppls relief, ppl will OD on water if it's in them to do so, but we can't make relief out of thin air or water if I make any sense
I have tension headaches, and people are always surprised that acetaminophen works for me…but it does…quickly. For my mom too, and we are medically similar.
I take at least one dose of acetaminophen daily because it helps reduce my headaches. For other pain I use ibuprofen, but they don't work on my headaches nearly as well
@@gingerscholar152 As a physical therapist with a master of science in manual therapy, it might be interesting to know that acetaminophen or paracetamol can CAUSE headaches, especially if you take it 15 or more days per 30 days. Same goes for NSAID's. Also triptans if you take it for 10 or more days per 30 days. Of course there needs to be a logical starting point of the headache occurence and medication use, you take the medication and only later develop a headache. Or you take the medication for the headache, which helps, but later on you start to get a headache that feels a bit different than before. Plus there have been many studies that indicate that a combination of manual therapy, massage, neck and upper back exercise and posture help more than acetaminophen (or paracetamol) and NSAID's.
For those allergic to NSAIDs like me, Tylenol may be the only option OTC. It does not perform miracles, but is very effective for some very specific types of headaches.
It's my backup plan for headaches. it works more often than it doesn't, and when it doesn't, usually means it wasn't some regular headache. I DO get migraines. it DOES NOT help with those. But it absolutely is useless for muscle pain. Lower back, upper back, ate hardwood floor on roller skates, ate ice on ice skates, yeah, doesn't help for those.
Have my upvote. Small amounts of NSAIDs cause me to bleed out uncontrollably and I’m 0/2 in surgeries because of it. Doctors wouldn’t even take me seriously until they started having to fill out adverse incident reports which can affect their insurance premiums. It’s mildly effective at headaches and joint pain for me but it’s literally my only option if my other medications aren’t enough.
I WISH acetaminophen worked for my headaches. Ibuprofen (and sometimes aspirin) are the only OTC meds that work for me. You can imagine how awful being pregnant is when you suffer from frequent headaches - and worse, migraines. We NEED more safe options for headache sufferers 😢
@@jahbern rimengepant works very well for me but it’s $150/pill before insurance in the US. Eltriptans also work and they just moved to the generic a few years ago so it’s cheaper but still $30-40/ pill before insurance. If you haven’t consulted a doctor I’d do so because these medications really do bring relief to many people and you don’t need to take huge amounts of OTC meds.
I have inflammatory arthritis and other chronic pain issues, and it definitely helps me. I’m very aware of the amount of pain I’m in at any given time, and it makes a difference. You couldn’t pry my Tylenol bottle out of my cold dead hands 😂
Same; arthritis in a knee and ankle from an accident. Acetaminophen is the only one that works well. Naproxen is about 50% as effective and Ibuprofen does nothing for me. I still try to only take 2 doses a day, no more than 3 on a bad day...limit is 4 doses.
Tylenol has a lot of benefits aside from being a fever, reducer and pain management I have EDS and mast cell activation syndrome. Tylenol doesn't do a lot for my pain but when I'm having a really bad attack/reaction and Benadryl doesn't help, Tylenol will.
I knew for years that acetaminophen didn't work for me, it was only when I turned 35 that my family doctor told me that I have Gilbert's syndrome so Tylenol does nothing for me. I felt pretty validated but also kind of mad. For years other doctors and nurses kept telling me that it works and I was mistaken. Constantly telling me how wrong I was made me distrust the medical establishment for years
I have Gilbert’s syndrome, but acetaminophen worked well for me when I broke my back. I’m very sensitive to opioid drugs; they make me sick, but acetaminophen seemed to work for me. The nurses were surprised I didn’t want codeine.
Really should emphasize the “for me” part. Others will think Tylenol doesn’t work at all, when it’s more that you’re a very specific case where the drug doesn’t work as well.
Acetaminophen was instrumental in pain management for my wife's ear infection; she couldn't use ibuprofen 24/7 because of risk to kidneys, but just OTC Tylenol had a similar effect on the pain, so alternating doses was a safe and effective way of getting her through. It absolutely does work.
Tylenol damages the liver which is the organ that defends the kidneys Tylenol is one of the most common medications to cause liver damage and hospitalizations
I think, personally, acetaminophen works for pain related to swelling or fevers, but not really other kinds of pain. That’s why it works well for childbirth (as someone who’s been there, a good bit of the pain is due to swelling because of all the bloodwork moving in and out to repair things).
Analysis revealed a 20% higher risk of autism and a 30% higher risk of ADHD for children who had prolonged exposure to acetaminophen during fetal development.
I've been telling people that it doesn't do anything for me for years, and they always look at me like I'm the weird one. The only time I've ever noticed it working was when I had an IV of it for a very bad tonsillitis, and even then while it made my fever go down a bit, it still didn't make the pain go away. I don't know if it doesn't work at all or if it only works on certain situations, but still I'm glad to know that I'm not crazy.
Every medication works differently on every person, it may just be ineffective for you. NSAIDS make me bleed out uncontrollably, if that was the case for everyone not only would all of them be pulled from store shelves, there would be massive lawsuits and cries to reform the drug approval system. Be glad you haven’t suffered any severe reactions from common medicines.
Immunities to various meds are relatively common. My mum doesn't process opioids normally and they just don't work on her. Same for some oldschool local anesthesia - which she found out during what ended up being a live tonsillectomy 😱
Doesn't work for me either. In Sweden where I live , they prescribe it for everything. I read up on paracetamol sensitivity, turns out I have it. So now I have in my records that I have a sensitivity to it.
I’ve been saying this for years. Tylenol has never worked for me for anything other than a fever. Naproxen was a life changer for me when it became otc. I use it for any & all pain, one dose usually makes a difference, & it works for 12 hours, instead of having to take something every 4-6 hours.
Most pain people feel on a day to day basis is due to inflammation which is what NSAIDs are for anyway. Acetaminophen is better for CNS and definitely fever reducing.
Acetaminophen on it's own seems pretty useless to my body but combined with aspirin and caffeine, it's the holy combo for headaches, which makes it possible for me to take a lower medication dosis
This explains a lot because I’ve never had it work and caffeine also doesn’t do anything so it probably makes it useless to me for whatever reason which sucks
Goodies powders. When my lupus was at its worst I ran on that stuff. When I had a lupus headaches I would mix it with kratom and chase it with bourbon. Now I rarely take anything for pain but keep it just in case.
I've been using it for tension headaches for many years. I notice a difference within an hour. Also, anytime I have a sore throat, I take some, and that has always helped. I don't get fevers as an adult, but I recall it bringing my temperature down as a kid.
@@TGFMusic I'm 43. Up until I was 18, I probably got one a year. Since then, I have had one. That was seven years ago. I'm rarely sick in general, though. In July, I got my first cold since January 2020.
@@TGFMusicYou should rethink your hygiene habits. And habits like touching your face with unwashed hands. Less exposure, the better. All doorknobs, keyboards, phones, laptops, there's lots of things commonly touched that don't get cleaned and can get very gross. I get a fever maybe once every other year myself. But you could also be in a bad job environment for that or something. You don't have to be germaphobic, just be mindful and reduce.
I’m not a chronic pill-popper, I maybe take it one or two times a year, but for the times I taken it Tylenol never noticeably worked for me. Ibuprofen does make a noticeable difference.
That's another factor. Humans are different from each other, sometimes very different, particularly on the biochemical level. A drug that works for 90% might fail to work for 5% and cause actual harm in another 5%. Or a drug might only work for 5% while the other 95% get no benefit or get some degree of harm.
Acetaminophen is usually what my dad would give me whenever I had a fever to bring it down and it would work. When I had a covid back in 2021 my biggest problem was a very high fever and the only medication after trying various things under the supervision of my doctor (which happened to be my cousin so I was incredibly fortunate to have somebody around the clock to turn to while I was incredibly sick at home and unable to travel anywhere for assistance) was acetaminophen. During that time I would log my body temperature every hour and report it all to her at home to monitor my condition it would bring my fever down from around 104° to ~100° in around 30-45 minutes and keep me there for about 5-6 hours. I wonder if the reviews found any data for fever reduction, or did the review exclusively look for evidence for pain relief?
Anecdotally (+ over many years) I've had covid / other viral a few times, and they're _always_ preceded by a very distinct type of headache (like a caffeine headache but harsher). This headache -- which comes with fever -- is suppressible with acetaminophen, one OTC every 4-6 hours for a couple days.
Can confirm with my own anecdotal evidence - when my infant son had covid with a fever I used it every 8 hours or whenever his temp when up for 2 days, taking his temperature constantly in that time - fevers being so dangerous in babies - I was beyond grateful it worked.
Paracetamol as it is named in Europe (exactly the same drug as Tylenol) works very well for me. A slight headache, 500 mg and I am OK within 1 hour. Half a year ago my dentist pulled a wisdom tooth. 500mg twice or 3 times daily for 3 days kept the pain away. The effect of one dose lasted approximately 10 hours, so the pain came back but disappeared again after next dose. Same experience a couple of years ago when I had a tooth implant.
I agree, for dental pain or toothache pain, it definitely works. While it doesn't eliminate the pain, it makes it able to be tolerated until you're able to be treated
Tylenol must affect different people differently. For me it has no noticeable effect on any kind of pain. It works well for reducing a fever and that is the only reason I use it. 🤔🤓🍻
I've pretty much the entire opposite effect with paracetamol. Ibuprofen works best for me, followed with the longer acting naproxen. Due to the longer half-life, I prefer the ibuprofen, as I've long been a minimum intervention for maximal benefit in my treatment philosophy. And as a military medic, I started so many IV infusions in the field, one would start moving cases of the IV bags in the morning and be well late for bed by the time you've reached the quantity I've infused over the decades. Oxygen, hundreds of liters over the decades. Other drugs, minimum intervention for maximal benefit, with one emergency that was protracted due to a lack of evacuation capabilities at the time literally consuming a substantial amount of our drug kit for a force of 1200 men. Suffice it to say, the Division Commander was quite angry at both expense and extreme risk over such a capricious decision against all evacuations at that time. As in, really bad career move, Sir.
as someone that had quite a few headaches earlier in life it worked very well for that. As far a other pains I cannot say if it worked or not. Seemed to work for my mom after bipass surgery not wanting to take the addictive oxycodones.
@@BrianK-zz4fk I don't take anything for headaches. My headaches are intense(like a knife stabbing through my temple) but only last about 30 seconds or less. They are rare (a few times a year) and nothing is going to take effect fast enough to help. Luckily those are the only headaches I get, ever. 🤔🤓🍻
The issue with acetaminophen for me, as someone who has dealt with debilitating migraines, is that when you are in extreme, unrelenting pain, the tendency is to take over the recommended dose. And with acetaminophen, even small amounts over the recommended dose can lead to permanent liver damage. Higher doses of ibuprophen might not be advisable, but it takes a lot more over the recommendation to cause serious and permanent damage. That being said, I don't think either work that well or at all for the types of headaches that I suffer from, so taking either of them is more like a forlorn hope.
I've never been tempted to take over the recommend dose of anything. They aren't suggestions, they are rules. Going against then in any way is to fundamentally misunderstand the situation.
Seconding what @pyrogreg8 said. Talk to a doctor. There are specific meds for migraines. There are also ones that help prevent them. Since I started taking Topiramate (I think the brand name is Topamax?), I hardly ever have them and when I do I have a med for it.
That's not true. It's categorically false actually. And as someone who nearly died from using nsaids as prescribed... it actually angers me that you'd say that. Both medications have their place. Neither medication should be abused. And they work better together. Inappropriate use of NSAIDs causes esophagus scarring, Barrett's Syndrome, GERD, chronic ulcers (not the kind you can take antibiotics for), & kidney damage. And QUICKLY. We're talking from healthy to almost dead in months. I'm one of the reasons prescribing instructions for NSAIDs changed & why there are warnings all over the bottles and boxes now. Me and hundreds of others who nearly died in the early 2000s as doctors were being told to prescribe fewer opiates, they were seeking alternatives. It is over 20yrs later and I am STILL dealing with ramifications. I will be on a kidney destroying medication, FOR LIFE, so daily functioning doesn't absolutely destroy my stomach & esophagus. Acetaminophen will take year to DECADES of abuse to cause permanent damage... and you have to combine it with alcohol usage for it to do serious damage at otherwise safe doses. Also, migraine medication is acetaminophen, aspirin, & caffeine. It's highly effective for actual migraines. However, there are headaches similar to migraines that aren't migraines. A Cranial Cervical Instability Headache will feel like a migraine hooked up with a tension headache & migraine meds aren't going to do jack for that on their own. You need to realign the cervical vertebrae & allow the ligaments to rest... since that headache is caused by overextension of the neck due to hypermobility. Cluster headaches are another type of headache that can feel like a migraine. Opiates & wait it out. If you have a particularly nasty migraine or a CCI headache... the ER cocktail works well. You can ask ER nurses & please ask your doctor... but I was taught 2 naproxen or aspirin (full strength) 2 acetaminophen, 2 benedryl (has to be the first gen antihistamine because it needs to cause you to relax & make you sleepy), & a shot of espresso or big cup of coffee. The acetaminophen amplifies the naproxen/aspirin... the caffeine is a vasodilator which helps the meds circulate faster, & the Benedryl will relax your entire body. Double down by pairing this with heat on the extremities & cold where it hurts. This will keep bare minimum blood going to the extremities & max blood going to where it hurts, therefore getting more of the medication where it needs to be. I like hot hands in gloves & socks, blankets, & a PT grade ice pack meant for the lower back right on the back of my head & a small ice pack on my forehead.
I never had any effect from acetamenophen. I was told 30 years ago that I was one of "10% of people" who are "immune" from it's effect. Now I fully understand. THANK YOU!!
My kid’s neurosurgeon says Tylenol is only good as a fever reducer. It’s use for pain is minimal at best. This was 13 years ago that he told me that. I always thought it was useless. I preferred aspirin or Advil. Honestly Orudis KT was the best.
I have Crohn's disease and NSAID's cause me to bleed internaly nearly every time. This basically leaves me with acetaminophen and I can say with absolute confidence that it does indeed help.
On the subject of OTC pain relievers aspirin always deserves a shout out for its life saving potential / blood thinning properties. Always have stocked and give 325mg to a loved one during a tight chest pain episode. Yours truly, a registered nurse
It's amazing how a home remedy made from willow bark became an effective worldwide pain medication. They give us a clue in the chemical name of aspirin; acetylsalicylic acid. Salix alba, the White Willow, is why that "salic" is in the chemical name!
Not all pains can be treated equally. Depending on the type of pain you have some medications are better, while others will not work at all. The most glaring examples of this are migraines. A true migraine (as some people call any headache a migraine, which is incorrect) will show little to no response to regular pain medication, including opioids. To treat a migraine you have to use vasoactive drugs that reverse the underlying process causing the migraine. And those vasoactive drugs aren't pain releavers, so they won't work for other causes of pain, only migraines and other related conditions. Chronic pain is also hard to treat, because once pain becomes chronic the nerve cells will send pain signals constantly, without any stimulus, and that means there isn't even a target for pain killers to act upon. In this case you need to use medication that stabilizes the neurons such that they don't fire as often to lower the pain, and these medications are usually classified as antidepressants or antiepileptics, which again aren't painkillers. There is a stark lack of training regarding pain management, which is ironic considering it is one of the main reasons people seek doctors to begin with. And the doctors that are best trained to help patients with pain are paliative care specialists, and so many patients will refuse to go see one because of the negative connotation paliative care has, feeling as if it's a sign they're dying or that the condition they have is severe. Acetaminophem is a good tool, but it's the most basic tool, and it certainly is not enough for everyone.
It's funny because I have had migraines and headaches for a long time. I'm really sensitive to stuff I guess like sunlight or not drinking enough water and sometimes that isn't enough. Aceto kind a works sometimes but I prefer to normally take NSAIDS because I've always been scared of liver damage from them. I've never had problems with any of them though. A lot of times i've avoided aceto because of drinking too I don't wanna put more strain on my liver. I have had brain fog as well and fatigue but I never connected them all together and I decided to get a prescription of adderall for brain fog and shockingly It tends to do very good at stopping my headaches, brain fog, and i'm not constantly tired. I noticed while on ephedrine that I tend to get significantly less headaches as well. I am a physics major so I don't have the greatest knowledge of drugs and their interactions but I do dabble a little and have done some research.
I noticed when id have ephedrine as well a lot of my headaches aren't as present, I don't know if increased dopamine levels or whatever vaso properties of the drugs have done it but it is definitely sometime I have noticed
Very well said. Chronic pain needs to be treated differently, and by the time many patients seek help, the pain is chronic. For myself, Tylenol was effective for my bone pain associated with rods, cages and may screws in my spine. It has allowed me to return to work and hike. 💕
As someone who went through a craniotomy, I knew it would be one of the two. That pain would go away within an hour or so. Also, it worked for my IMRT brain RT, though not as well as it did for the craniotomy. I'm going to guess that wasn't well studied, because studies on brain cancer tend not to go deep enough into QoL issues and because of the cognitive impairments a lot of people with brain cancer have can skew data. Fentanyl also worked for the craniotomy, but I think I was only on it for a day. Then norco for one day, then dexamethasone and Tylenol (the Tylenol as needed), then Tylenol only as needed.
Incredibly interesting! In my time in the pharmacy I remember reading it’s only effective for about 40 % of the population. Personally, I’m not a friend of it considering how easily it can be overdosed due to being in combination products without people realising - and how dangerous such an overdose can quickly become.
Personally I noticed decades ago that acetaminophen based medications do essentially nothing to relieve pain for me. Later on my mother offered me several different acetaminophen based medications because they didn't work for her (she never checks the active ingredients). So I had just assumed it was a weird genetic thing. Not sure if its just much more common than I thought or if it indeed just doesn't work at all.
another commenter mentioned Gilbert's syndrome as a cause for this. i know nothing about it, just wanted to transfer that term down here so you'd see it and maybe be able to check it out
It works for me for headaches and mild pains from stiff/sore muscles. Though I always need to take 2 pills and it takes a while to kick in. NSAIDs I can get by with 1 pill and they work probably 25% faster, and on more intense pains. But I limit my use of them because of the side effects.
Acetaminophen does work well as an antipyretic, as do aspirin and ibuprofen. It is the analgesic function is what is in doubt. Although it appears that this is highly variable based on the comments.
When I was a teenager, I tried to kill myself, by taking a bunch of pills in the medicine cabinet. Of all the things I took, which included a number of prescription drugs, it was the over-the-counter Tylenol that the doctor was most concerned about.
Yeah, with opioid and benzo overdose, it’d be pretty obvious if you were od’ing as you’d quickly lose consciousness, however with Tylenol overdose your liver has quite a bit of time before it fails, and then a bit more time before you die. Up to a week in some circumstances. If you’d made it to hospital and you were awake and talking, the Tylenol is really the only concern.
My 74 year old father was stricken with arthritis last year. His hands swelled, he could barely walk , stand or sit without aid. He started taking extra strength Tylenol every six hours. Within an hour of taking it he could walk up stairs again and said his joint pain was noticably less. It took some time for the swelling in his hands to go away, but today he has most of his mobility back again. He also went to therapy sessions which helped a lot. I know this is only anecdotal, but those "clinical" tests you mentioned seem to be hugely flawed. He and I will continue to take Tylenol. Also, he is on blood thinners and Tylenol is the only pain reliever that is safe for him to take.
My organization routinely gives the Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen combo. We're told that for certain pain, it is as effective as a mild opioid due to the way the act synergistically in the body. Anecdotally, I've personally experienced relief from the combo when one or the other couldnt eliminate a headache. I've never had opioids so I can't personally comment there today, but I know that I'll be getting some Tramadol following dental surgure next week so I'll be able to update that particular point then 😂
@curioustill haha that's fantastic! Honestly, for what I'm experiencing, it feels pretty similar. I'm tempted to be dumb and just go without any pain meds for the day to see how much they are actually doing. From what I can tell, though, the main difference was that I feel a little more relaxed with the tramadol, which makes sense given that it's an opioid. That said, that comes with feeling ever so slightly altered. I did come across a paper somewhere saying that Tramadol isn't particularly effective for pain following dental surgery so it's possible that it may be more effective for other types of pain but I haven't done much more diving in than that lol. I'll get back at you with what I decide to do lol.
@@curioustill, and just like that the experiment is over. The dentist gave me amoxicillin which you are not supposed to take with tylenol due to increased chance of bleeding. I didn't have any issues yesterday but won't be continuing that lol.
Paracetamol is actually pretty useful for me, I use it occasionally as a booster when my pain is worse, and when I’m in pain in hospital a paracetamol drip is really good! The chronic pain team described paracetamol as like the “gravy” of a good meal, it helps compliment other painkillers, and generally when taken carefully is useful.
To be fair, stuff like placebo effects are always important to note as well. The Placebo effect is very strong. When actually testing to see if medicines work, you ALWAYS need to check it against a placebo. Even in cases where drugs DO work, the placebo effect can still make their effects even more pronounced. I mean, either way, if the medicine is working for you then thats great. (especially if doctors are prescribing it). My only point in saying all this is to just keep in mind that personal accounts of whether or not a medicine works for you may not actually be all that helpful since you havent controlled for other potential variables.
Paracetamol is one of the better painkillers (better then ibuprofen) when you build a level. 3 times spread out a day and after 2 days it really kills a lot of pain.
This confirms my observations. Acetominephin seems to work for anything caused by inflammation (headaches, sprained ankles, bruising, bug bites) but not anything else. It does nothing for a sore throat, but regular old honey cures that. I always try acetominephin first, if I have a mysterious pain. With a lot of common conditions, acetominephin seems to only alleviate not eliminate the pain. That's consistent with the idea that it is primarily addressing inflammation. I'm fairly pain tolerant, and I need to remain alert, so I personally don't usually bother eliminating pain. Acetominephin certainly works for my purposes, much of the time, because my goal is to make the pain not a distraction rather than entirely take it away.
Been wanting to say this for a while now, but Reid you do a really good job at this. You deliver the info well, and make watching the video just that much better. Plus you seem like you'd be a G that'd be cool to have a beer with too. lol 🍻
I don't know about chronic illnesses but it gets rid of my headaches every time. I also remember it working well as a cough suppressant back when I had covid. It was pretty much the only way I could get any sleep back then.
It's worked for me on headaches, too. It's the only thing it works on, but to balance that, other meds (otc or prescript) have either done poorly or not worked at all on my headaches, so... *shrugs*
@@Sarah-said It reduces fever symptoms. In any case, I'm only speaking from personal experience. I went from coughing every 3 seconds without it to coughing every minute with it. It was a very noticeable difference.
Back in 2015 I had the worst tonsillitis of my life; the EMT told me it was safe to combine acetaminophen and ibuprofen to get a higher dose of pain-killing activity than would be safe from one or the other on its own. Sure enough, for that period the acetaminophen+ibuprofen combo was the only way I could sleep.
Reid: "Doctors have been prescribing this drug without really knowing the efficacy or side effects." Also Reid: "Follow your doctor's advice." 😂 (I really hope doctors are keeping up-to-date with good research and also challenging their pre-existing biases!)
Every few years the codes for building houses will be updated to reflect new best practices, adapting technology, and better understanding of safety measures. What that DOESN'T mean is that we should all start DIYing our own electricity. A doctor is a professional you hire to work on your "house". Sometimes you get a shitty contractor. But you should still hire a doctor.
Science is a process. We will never know everything. We will have to move forward and make decisions, we just reavaluate that science as new knowledge comes to light.
Going to be honest, I only use acetaminophen for fevers, and yes, it is effective for that. Took it when I had a 105 degree fever with strep a couple years ago, and both acetaminophen and ibuprofen worked well to control it.
@@audeforcione-lambert4293 My issue is that the video asks if it does anything, and it does. I just found it odd that the video made it sound like pain is the only thing Tylenol is used for.
I can say, without doubt, Tylenol has helped me with tooth aches. Went from keeping me up to nothing for pain. Once it wore off, the pain would come back.
I had 2 surgeries very close to each other in 2022. One was to remove part of my large intestine, they used zero opiods and only acetaminophen. That pain management was awesome! My thumb surgery included opiods. The pain has been awful. Clearly, acetaminophen works well in the digestive tract, as you suggested. That should not be under played.
From my own experience, it works for mild menstrual cramps but not as well as ibuprofen. But a combo of both work best. Also when I got Covid, acetaminophen worked very well for the body aches and for sore throat. I definitely could tell when I needed to take another dose at that time lol.
Ibuprofen is the ticket for me (double dose, of course). A while back, my dentist wanted to write me a prescription for super-strength ibuprofen, which isn't cheap. I turned her down because I already had a giant bottle of generic OTCs at home. Just up the pill count to match the dosage and you're golden.
I would love to see a follow up to this about the pairing of acetaminophen and hydrocodone or oxycodone. Does this truly make the opioid work better, or simply make the prescriber feel like they aren't "handing out narcotics?"
Oh, that "sinergistic effect" note mad me laugh when I read it in the pdr. Yes, I'm a professional patient and so read the pdr so I know when I'm being lied to. It's to make the prescriber feel better about not handing out pure opioids and to reduce the overdose risk. You're less likely to down half a bottle of hydrocodone if you know your liver will fly the coop if you do so. Well, some people are.
Imo even if it does make them work "better" it's probably a by a very small degree and the real practical reason to prescribe them like that it's 100% to make them feel safer about prescribing it since it helps avoid patients abusing it or accidentally overdosing. If you are in such a degree of pain as to need to take opioids, taking paracetamol with them is almost like having a filler with some placebo effect and from personal experience I can't say that having them mixed with paracetamol made me feel any better than just taking the thing.
@@sedmikrasky. That's understandable, it's not meant to make you feel any better, it's meant to make a smaller amount of opioid go further. And the paracetamol-opioid combo isn't just for out of hospital use, it''s also used intra-operatively and with acute patients, where the argument that the chance of abuse is lower doesn't really apply.
Thank you for making such a nuanced video on this topic. Seems like we just have to wait for more evidence for now. Disappointing but it's better to work with some uncertainty than with wrong assumptions.
I feel like, in the UK we all kind of do the same thing; Paracetamol for a mild headache, Ibuprofen for anything worse, both when you're really fed up. Stronger meds are available ofc but that seems to be the go-to.
Ibuprofen has always been my go-to painkiller, since I have always said "paracetamol just doesn't seem to do anything for me". Nice to know I was ahead of the curve on that!
Wasn't mentioned, but I've found that efficacy varies widely by individual. For example, it works great for me for many things, but doesn't do anything for my spouse except fever reduction.
Anecdotally I tried acetaminophen for many years when I was young, and could tell you without doubt that it did _nothing_ for me. So I quit using it and switched to ibuprofen, which _does_ work. Then when I had some serious tooth problems I got worried about how much ibuprofen I was taking. It would relieve the tooth pain for about 4 hours and then I'd have to take more, which is against the dosage recommendations. So I thought I'd alternate with acetaminophen and see what happened. Lo and behold, it worked. And for about the same amount of time. What I took from that is acetaminophen works for some pain and not for others, and it takes experimentation to find out what that is.
You do know the dosage limit of ibuprofen is mostly because of potential liver damage and Paracetamol is worse in that regard? You can't just take two medications and essentially double the dosage limit, unless a doctor cleared it. In this case no doctor would have.
@@4203105while it's true you have to be careful when mixing medications (some can cancel each other out and others can multiply each other's intended or unintended effects), doctors definitely DO allow alternating between acetaminophen and ibuprofen for some things. I gave birth a month ago and alternating between these two exact medicines was their standard treatment for pain relief during recovery.
My anecdotal experience is that acetaminophen is great at lowering big pains, but useless at getting rid of sucky but meh pains. My mom was big on "take Tylenol if you have any minor discomfort". I'm very "I only take meds if it's stopping me from sleeping/working". Naturally, when I follow her advice acetaminophen seems to be useless. When I trust my gut, it's ibuprophen with way less side effects.
Does it work if paracetamol doesn't? they tried to give it to me last time i was in the hospital and i was like if i already tried the pill an hour ago why would it help given a different way? (especially because i dont do well with needles at all lol)
Anecdotally, can confirm. Not a big medications guy. However, the last few years have seen me incorporating a few OTC pain meds on occasion. Ibuprofin worked. Very well. Unfortunately, it also causes a serious case of Tinnitus if I have to take it for an extended period. So I switched to Acetaminophen. It has been doing literally nothing for me the last 6 months I've made the switch. I've just been going back to IB and trying to cut back the dosage to avoid hitting the toxicity point that triggers the massive ringing.
Acetaminophen was the only pain reliever that reliably worked on my period symptoms. (Like, worked better than ibuprofen.) I know it's bad for your liver, but it's always worked for me. It also helped me work the day after I got my most recent covid booster, which always gives me flu symptoms.
As long as you have a healthy liver function AND you don't take to high doses of acetaminophen/paracetamol, you should be fine. Yes, it does have a very toxic metabolite (N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine), but your liver further metabolizes that metabolite to a non-toxic one. So if either your liver is impaired or you overdose acetaminophen you are at risk of toxicity, but as long as you know that your liver works well AND you keep following the recommended dose you don't have to worry about toxicity. :)
@@ffarkasm Also, don't drink alcohol while on Tylenol because less of the toxic metabolite will be detoxified -- i.e., Tylenol will be more risk of serious side effects to your liver.
I had a raging toothache and I couldn't see a dentist for 5 days. I took ibuprofen every 6 hours just to keep the pain down to a dull ache. I was told to take both acetaminophen and ibuprofen instead of only the latter; since the former isn't an NSAID it was okay to take both. Lo & behold my pain completely disappeared until the tooth could be pulled, not even sensitive to pressure. Just an anecdote so take it with a grain of salt but it absolutely does work for pain to some extent.
I only take it for headaches every once in a while, and it does seem to work after 20 to 30 minutes of a single dose. Never really tried to use it for anything else. But it could also be placebo effect, so *shrugs*.
Thst's my problem with the stuff. For extreme dental pain from the inflammation caused by an infected tooth, or from the root canal to fix the infected tooth, Tylenol's great. But it only works for 30-45 minutes at a pop.
It certainly helps some of the migraine pain I get and as I'm allergic to NSAIDs I don't have many other options. Though the best thing I've had for migraines are cool packs on my head and neck.
I feel your pain, being allergic to NSAIDs is so limiting on what we can take to deal with random headaches (luckly I don't get migraines). Weird thing is it started after my 30s.
Back in the early 1980s when I started my UK nurse training our chief pharmacist said he thought that the then recent switch from aspirin to paracetamol was more related to money than safety. An untreated overdose of paracetamol will lead to permanent liver damage. Aspirin was out of patent so drug companies couldnt make enough money out of it. No idea if he was right but it wouldnt surprise me. And now we know that aspirin is useful for other things besides pain.
I'm almost 70 years old and have been using aspirin for my whole life without any issues. It always seems strange when informational videos don't even mention it.⬅ I know some people experience problems with it, especially with prolonged use, but for the majority of us, it is cheap and effective.
Aspirin thins your blood and puts you at risk of internal bleeding. That's why it isn't normally recommended except for low doses for people who need blood thinning and when you are having a heart attack.
Aspiring works as an NSAID (like ibuprofen and naproxen), but due to the irreversible platelet inhibition it has a higher risk for benefit than the usual NSAIDs, and are thus not usually recommended for general OTC use, though it remains available, at least in many places. So for the population groups that shouldn't take NSAID's, Aspirin is not recommended, and for the population groups without heightened risk from NSAID complications, there are preferable alternatives.
I’m allergic to Acetaminophen. I found out when I was a small child and took children’s Tylenol. It triggered Reye’s Syndrome, liver failure, spinal cord swelling, etc. I almost died.
I'm allergic too, and I get doubt from so many medical professionals that it's real. I think feeling like someone stuck a cheese grater down your throat means you're allergic, especially since my mom and her mom are all allergic.
@@Mateus01234 does relate. Because if we’re discussing safety and people having allergic reactions. People have such strong beliefs that it’s safe that if people do have bad reactions people are not gonna believe that their reactions are because of the Tylenol. That’s my take on it at least
It did a number on my eldest son's liver, and my ex has to be careful not to take any, because it makes his liver enzymes shoot sky-high, too. My youngest has always avoided it because of the familial reaction to it. And suffering from chronic pain like I and my youngest son do (I've got wrecked SI joints, he's got fibro & a grumpy case of stenosis, too), we can safely say pain is very difficult to treat, as well as very difficult to study, as everyone's different.
Hey Mary, I have wreck SI joints too! Twins! It doesn't help me either. I'm getting a bilateral fusion in a couple of weeks, mostly hoping for a neutral result, like stopping the progression of the joint disease :/. Much love to you and your son!
I just had an si fusion. My recommendation is to get it fused. I can walk like a normal person about 80% of the time now. Psoriatic arthritis caused sacroiliitis in my case, I'm pushing to get the other one fused . I hope you both have as many good days as possible.
@AwkwardSquirrel13 I hope you get as much relief as I got or more. The recovery was a little rough, make sure you have a walker crutches took about 10days before i could use them. but hey they were messing around with my bone marrow lol.
@@trentgay3437 hey Trent, thanks for such lovely comments! I have complex health issues on top of this, so i already have a walker and crutches and wheelchairs! Lol! Hopefully there's some pain reduction but the surgeon is very apprehensive that this surgery won't actually help the pain. He's not had someone with my presentation, or my complex health issues on top of everything. Hence why we just have to be on the se neutral page, of here's some neutral outcomes that would still be worth it to me, stopping the progression, being able to sit up for an hour for the first time in a year, etc etc. My surgery date is Nov 1st, so just trying to rest as much as possible. Glad you got pain reduction!! Hope you can get the other one done! You deserve good days! Much love!
All I know is that, a little over 12 years ago, I began to feel strong pain in my lower left abdomen. At first I attributed it to stress symptoms (our department had been informed that we were all to be laid off sometime that year). But the pain didn't go away and in fact, got worse. When it got so bad that at times, I was doubled over in pain, I started to take 2 acetominophen pills (or caplets, whatever it was). In a short time, the pain was greatly diminished. I figured that that pain would eventually go away, and being someone who doesn't want to bother going to the doctor much (making the appt., the wait time, etc. - for something minor) I just let it go for awhile. But after about 2 weeks, and with a bit of a push from a friend, I decided to go in and get it checked out. Turned out to be ovarian cancer and endometriosis. All I know is that the Tylenol made a HUGE difference. Could it have been placebo effect? I can't say for 100% that it wasn't but I just know that the pain would become terrible again after several hours and then get better after taking the meds. (I eventually had surgery for the issues, and a follow-up, precautionary few rounds of chemo, and am fine now). Also, after having a Carpal Tunnel release surgery, probably about 15 or so years ago, I reacted badly to the prescribed vicodin (made me have bad nausea and vomiting). So, I stopped taking that and just used Tylenol, and I was fine. I may suffer some future ill-effects from the medication, as I took QUITE A LOT, especially after my cancer started to cause me pain, but I just know that, at the time, it allowed me to function.
My wrists have carpal tunnel symptoms. I find acetaminophen to be absolutely useless for that but naproxen is immediate and effective relief. Everyone's body reacts differently, I suppose.
@@animeartist888 That's probably because carpal tunnel is caused by nerve inflammation. Tylenol doesn't really reduce inflammation, so it makes sense that naproxen would work better for that.
And to hear my friends talk about it, it is only men who deny their pain and wait to actually see a doctor. My dark humor aside, I hope you are doing as well as you can.
Funny thing about ibuprofen, it’s also known as “Army candy”. Your leg could fall off and the military doctor will tell you “to take 2x 800mg ibuprofens and drink water”. Now that I’m retired, I’m learning how bad that medical guidance was so bad.
Acetaminophen has never noticeably decreased any pain for me, AT ALL. Ibuprophen works amazingly, although I do have to eat first, or I'll get a stomachache. Acetaminophen also makes my stomach and kidneys hurt.
@@TysonJensen yes, but my doctor keeps trying to insist that I take acetaminophen instead of ibuprofen, I tell him I'm going to take what works and doesn't make my organs ache.
It's always had no impact on me for aches and pains. I thought I was weird but it's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks it's essentially useless. Now I want to know how an impotent drug became a cure all for everything!
I’m sure it became popular because it works great for some people (including me). Sorry it doesn’t work for you, but believe me, it does work great for some people. It’s the most important med in my medicine cabinet. It’s almost the only med in my medicine cabinet though, as so far I thankfully haven’t needed much medicine over my life.
My go-to for most pains and fevers is... water. If the fever is low grade, I let it do its biological function of helping to kill off invaders. If water and gentle stretching doesn't help with muscle or joint pain, I MIGHT take acetaminophen once that day. Usually that's enough to reduce the pain to let me keep moving things, and as most of my muscle and joint pain is from sleeping weird or doing something unexpectedly strenuous, it works out.
Acetaminophen has never relieved pain for me. I realized this as a child, before I even knew what it really was. I had migraines and it did nothing for my migraines. For years I've told doctors that Tylenol didn't work for me. It's reassuring that other people feel this way also.
I don’t know anyone who regularly suffer from severe migraines who are helped by any pain medication of any type. Migraines are not a good example, they are probably the poorest understood common pain. If your doctor is surprised that it doesn’t work for migraines you need to find a better doctor because that’s extremely common. I suffer from tension headaches every so often and paracetamol (same thing as acetaminophen but for Europe) works wonders for that. When I can’t get a professional massage, it’s my only line of defence. If I don’t take them it’ll ramp up and get worse and worse.
Paracetamol on its own isn’t enough to stop a migraine for me either. It can help make one of the symptoms (headache) milder, but unlike sumatriptan it’s useless against all the other symptoms.
I've always felt like Acetaminophen did nothing for me- headaches, joint pain, injuries- all no effect. The only exception is when I combined painkillers. Learned that when I caught mono in high school. I had excessively high fever- Ibuprofen couldn't handle it by itself, but alternating the two worked wonders. Same when I had COVID. And when I was having horrendous joint and foot aches from a job that was apparently too much for my body to handle, adding acetaminophen in with my naproxen and ibuprofen definitely helped. So hearing that it actually changes the way we reabsorb other painkillers makes a whole lotta sense to me. I think I'll keep using it for that and stick to my usual of ibuprofen for headaches and injuries and naproxen for joint aches as before. But it feels good to be justified in my painkiller pickiness.
@@MandrakeFernflower agreed, that also works well as does aspirin. UK NHS prefer to use paracetamol as they think it's more effective and has less risks of complications than NSAIDs.
@@lukeg3108 good for headaches, plenty use it for period pain. I would use ibuprofen for anything musculoskeletal. You can also combine paracetamol with ibuprofen as they work completely differently.
@@lukeg3108NSAIDs work in a different way that Tylenol. The AI part is anti-inflammatory, so they relieve pain by reducing swelling. I think Tylenol acts on the nerves (could be wrong but it's an action orher than reducing swelling). So it's pain dependant on which medication would work best. Sprained ankle or toothache or something the like, NSAIDs would target that type of issue. Non-inflammation issue, Tylenol might work better. But everyone reacts to medicine slightly differently, so that's not a 100% hard rule.
My daughter, who just turned 1, has 4 teeth coming in and, though we try not to give her medicine at all if we can help it, she's had a few doses of acetaminophen over the last few days. This is all fascinating to hear and think about with her because I know it does *something* but can a 1 year old get a placebo effect when she doesn't even have a good grasp of language yet? When does the placebo effect even start to work? We've been told by her pediatrician to only use acetaminophen because it's safe for her at the correct dose but do we know that for sure? I would be willing to bet these studies didn't include babies/toddlers since it's much more difficult to get approval for testing on those groups. I just have so many more questions now! And that's why I love science! 😅
I think once you're cognisant enough to grasp the concept of "medicine makes you feel better" that's when the placebo effect can start working. Whether you can vocalize it to others or not. That's just my opinion tho. I know that I'm one of the few immune to the placebo effect altogether. When I was in my early teens my psychiatrist tried giving me placebos instead of actual meds needless to say he almost ended up with a lawsuit. Until he gave me Wellbutrin which actually helped me. (I had undiagnosed ADHD so that makes sense in retrospect.)
Tylenol works best for the "malaise" feeling you get when you are sick and it seems to reliably break fevers. For actual acute, specific pain, like a headache or joint/muscle paint I don't think it does anything.
Hi! I work in pharmacy. Current studies actually suggest that acetaminophen is more effective at pain management than opioid based medications when it comes to pain management. Analgesics, the classification of medication which Tylenol (acetaminophen) belongs to, in general are far better at managing pain than most other drugs while delivering very few side effects from long term use. Analgesics and NSAIDs used in tandem with one another are also very effective (Both medications manage pain, but work on entirely different systems in the body to achieve the result and are also excreted from the body in entirely different ways). I get a lot of joint pains and have severe back pain from trauma I suffered several years ago and I take 2 tabs of acetaminophen an 1 tablet of ibuprofen (Advil) together and that wipes out every from my body for the entirety of the day. I do NOT take this daily, nor do I suggest anyone take this daily - I tend to take them like this when the pain becomes beyond manageable. Ultimately, the hard truth many people have to face is that no human body is made to on long term use of pain management drugs - this has been known in the industry for decades. This is why these drugs aren't meant to be taken long term - they're meant to be taken short term with other forms of treatment, such as physical therapy, on the side to develop better structures in the body to support injuries long term.
Acetaminophen worked much better for me than oxycodone after hemorrhoidectomy surgery. The recovery is quite painful, but I discovered that taking the maximum dose of Tylenol worked after oxycodone did not help with the pain during the first two days.
Tylenol worked for fever reliever and helped me with bladder infection. Outside of that, I only found it to be a booster to my nsaids for other pain such as migraines. I haven’t seen any mention of it being used as boosters
Whether it works for pain or not, it's a great fever reducer. When I had covid my fever just kept climbing. I took ibuprofen but it did nothing. When I hit 103 I thought I would have to go to the hospital and I did NOT want to go to the hospital but my husband ran out for Tylenol and it finally came back down. I had a fever for a full month and I tried to let the fever work but whenever it got really high the Tylenol was the only thing that brought it back down.
As a hangover frequenter, I can attest that it works. And its not just placebo because the headache will remove itself 20-30 min after taking it while im thinking about something else entirely
Thank you for emphasizing that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence (even still I’m sure some won’t process it). My take on the actual subject matter, it comes down to using the right drug for the right problem. Tylenol *isn’t* an anti-inflammatory. Most pain is inflammatory. If you try to use Tylenol for inflammatory pain, you will get poor effects. If you pair it with non-inflammatory pain (or at least not primarily inflammatory pain), the effects are much more obvious. People using for the wrong thing, washes out the effect for people using it for the right things.
I frequently suffer headaches and do find that paracetamol certainly helps (quite a lot). Back when I had constant tooth ache, its effects were ... pretty minimal. Anecdotal evidence is the bestest evidence \o/
@@karlmuster263 I can provide evidence to the contrary. My comment was posted on a science communication YT channel, which means it counts as science and thereby your assertion is proven false! Check and Mate! 🤡
@@karlmuster263 funnily enough, seems a good chunk of the information discussed here came from self analysis of multiple individuals... A bunch of people reporting anecdotes of their subjective experience with the drugs or lack thereof. With inconsistent small doses for completely random stuff, it kinda is just a game of average anecdotal response. Would be nicer if the methodology was a bit more robust, like there's a reason acetaminophen is regularly paired with opiates to help affect, and I've always been resistant to painkillers but have gotten use from Tylenol consistently when needed, such as tooth pain after a crown or mild headaches. Seems to me its probably a good painkiller for the pains it is supposed to kill, and people cant really understand that 'painkiller' isnt a magic term that makes all forms of hurt go away.
It's only ever worked on headaches for me, but for that *one* thing, it has worked better than other meds (otc or prescript) have. . Well, it might've also worked to reduce fevers when I was a kid, but as I was pretty young (and, obviously, ill), I can't recall.
I grew up with the adge of "Tylenol for fever and teeth, Ibuprofen for everything else" And while it's different for others I assume, its worked out pretty well for me so far. This was as enlightening as mud, I love it 😂
This all tracks with my experiences through life. I always felt that ibuprofen and Alieve worked better for body aches and such than Tylenol, but since my stomach issues have gotten bad the NSAIDs really kill me. Fortunately, most of my headaches are tension headaches so Tylenol working for that also tracks.
NSAIDs have always worked more readily for me but Tylenol is fine as long as my pain doesn't involve my lower back. I do also have (controlled, medicated) hypertension, so if I take an NSAID I take the lowest dose I can and go up as needed. Tylenol also worked really well alternating with ibuprofen during wisdom tooth surgery recovery. I had 4 teeth out under general anaesthesia and only needed alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen every 4-6 hours. I was instructed by my surgeon to take it until I felt like I didn't need it anymore. It was close to two weeks post-surgery when I began to ease off the meds. They worked perfectly with no need for a narcotic medication.
Acetaminophen has never worked for me. When I was younger it was the only pain killer that my family would let me use. I had to put up with the pain until finally my PMS as a teenager was so bad I couldn’t walk and was crying that they finally let me use ibuprofen. I’ve tried acetaminophen a few years ago for a headache just to see what it would do and lo and behold, it didn’t do anything.
I've had chronic pain since kindergarten. Acetaminophen does jack-squat for me. Although I've found that it can help "extend" the effects of ibuprofen when taken in spaced, regular intervals (do this only if your doctor says to do so, and only for as long as they prescribe. protect your liver). I'm at a point of my life where I take ibuprofin near-daily because of pain, and acetaminophen just doesn't cut it.
Tylenol worked for me for period pain for 20 years. Advil/Ibuprofen didn't do anything. Then I got an IUD and now it's the opposite. But for a headache or any other kind of non menstrual pain, Tylenol is still my go to and it works.
Visit brilliant.org/scishow/ to get started learning STEM for free. The first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription and a 30-day free trial.
It definitely works if you mix it with vodka.
So stupid reality. The England study of NSAIDs well the people they tested that suffered problems took them with massive amounts of alcohol or were meth addicts while the people who took NSAIDs without poisons had not problems at all.
@michaelmayhem350 Everything is better with Vodka LMFAO 😂😂😅😅😊😊🎉
I think it's important to mention that acetaminophen has a much smaller range between an effective dose and a dangerous one than most NSAIDs. (this is called its safety margin).
A lot of people don't strictly follow the dosing information on the packaging, which means that NSAIDs are often safer for those patients.
Should have included hydromorphone (not hydrocodone)in the back pain study
Fever reduction is one of the most common uses of acetaminophen - and even low-grade fevers can cause body aches, headaches, etc. Would be interesting to see how much of the observed effect of acetaminophen can be linked to its fever-reducing properties.
Good question. I have rarely ever taken a pain killer, but when I had covid, I had miserable body aches. After a couple days, I took two Tylenol and it was like a miracle. The fever went down, the aches went away, and I was fine. I never knew that fever was linked to body aches. I haven't taken a Tylenol since, but if I'm ever in pain from a fever again, I won't hesitate to try it.
Yes, 100% reliable for fever reduction regardless of the cause of the fever. It seems that fever intrinsically causes a type of pain -- "febrile pain" -- and you feel better when the fever "breaks".
Low-grade fevers should be allowed to do their jobs, unless there are specific health reasons otherwise for the individual.
A fever is the body ramping up the heat to help fight invaders. As long as the fever itself is not doing harm, keep up on the fluids and let the fever work.
or what us old people call, "sweating it out."@@MonkeyJedi99
I learned this as a child as well. Interestingly, I recently read a book by a doctor challenging that idea. She believes that fever is the invader's way of making the body temperature higher so that it can reproduce more quickly. She claimed that all the research proves that bacteria are not harmed by temperatures slightly above normal and in fact the ideal temperature for reproducing bacteria is in the low 100s. So maybe we've been looking at it wrong all this time.@@MonkeyJedi99
Tylenol has NEVER worked for my back pain, but my doctors kept giving it to me after I had a spinal fusion. It was both painful and frustrating that they kept giving it to me regardless of how ineffective it was. I'm glad someone is researching it's effectiveness for various types of pain. It doesn't make sense to give it for back pain if it doesn't work.
Agree!
Same! I have recurring back pain, and whenever I’ve taken acetaminophen it’s NEVER helped at all. Once had terrible back pain on a 4.5 hour flight, while pregnant, and with a toddler, but I’d already maxed out how much acetaminophen I could take. Worst. Flight. EVER. I don’t think I’ve taken any for pain since that day.
@@bethn2836
Didn’t you try other over-the-counter pain relievers to see if any of them helped?
Perhaps dose was to small or the pain was to big, from what I can say for either muscle or periosteum pains best drug is Dexketoprofen in 50mg/100mg doses but for prolonged use it is not recommended.
Try mixing it with 400mg of advil. The combination of the 2 have similar effects to narcotics but are not addictive. Opioid use for back pain is a slippery slope. It does help yes but the addiction and resulting social implications can be a nightmare
Acetaminophin may have dubious pain relief effects, but one thing it definitely works for is reducing fever. I'm really surprised you don't mention that in a video titled "Does Tylenol Actually Do Anything?"
The title is very clickbaity, which is something I wouldn't expect from SciShow but here we are
I came here to say this
+1 This video fell short of SciShow standards
But now doctors aren't as keen on fever reduction being a good thing ...
@@k.c1126 if your fever's high enough they are lol
With how long acetaminophen has been on the shelves, it's odd to me that we're only *just now* looking into whether or not it actually works
People have been drinking orange juice for the common cold for years despite it having zero effect on it.
It's not new, the fact that it does nothing has been known for decades.
Its an old drug and since its been used for along time the fda gave them a pass but you could read some articles that say that Tylenol would not pass the standards new drugs have to go through today.
@alittlebitgone Glad I never really trusted it then lol
I'm the type to just power through headaches and the like. Some warm tea or honey for sore throats, that kind of stuff. Unless I absolutely need pharmaceuticals I don't bother
@@MariaM-cm7vl Fair enough
My spouse has often said, “You might as well take 2 jelly beans rather than take 2 Tylenol because their pain-killing effects are the same.” I have to agree.
Half of any analgesic is placebo, so whilst it may not be particular potent as an analgesic on its own, it’s a great antipyretic and if you think it works, it does something.
I've been saying for years that acetaminophen doesn't do anything.
@@lukematney7062it helped me when i broke my foot
AGREED!
Part of the hint: researchers STILL can’t qualify mechanism: how or why it works, only that “it does”.
It’s more of a threat to your liver than should be acceptable, considering it has no noticeable effect.
Hence it is banned from “on shelf” access in shops where iive
It may be genetic
I'm so thankful for this video. Acetaminophen has never worked for me as a pain reliever. As a fever reducer it's been helpful, but as a pain reliever it has never helped me. Most of the physicians I've said this to tend to assume me saying it doesn't work (and that I can't take NSAIDs) is "drug seeking behavior." It's exhausting.
Never worked for me either. The only time it has is when I had a doctor tell me to alternate Tylenol and Naproxen when I had a linear fracture in my finger. That actually worked quite well, better than either by itself.
It's always worked well to break a fever though, as you said.
Im actively rejecting of synthetics. Good luck proving that too. Tell em criminal history is public record, maybe look at mine before you start assuming and slandering my character in record writing.
I've been an Ibuprofen guy for years. It has always worked better for me than Acetaminophen. I rarely use things for pain, so it doesn't really matter for me
I'm the same. Acetaminophen never helped me with pain relief. I got use to living with headaches and random pains. The first time I took Ibuprofen was astonishing. Luckily, I don't have any chronic conditions that cause pain so I can take it for the occasional pain without worrying about the side effects.
I’m on naproxen and it does wonders for me. The thing is you can’t really take it all the time unless your doctor tells you to cause you can build a tolerance to it and it doesn’t work like it should. The stuff has really benefited me over the years when my knees and my back are bothering me
Me too, until I developed heart issues. Acetaminophen is all I can use now.
Personally Ibuprofen completely stopped treating my headaches so Acetaminophen has been my savior
@@bryantwiltrout5492 Naproxen + paracetamol is the best, except for actual pain killers ofc
I used to be a toxicologist in a crime lab and told my VA doctor I didn't want Oxycodone with Acetaminophen for my broken back and spinal arthritis when the pills contained 1000mg or ONE GRAM of Acetaminophen. This was because I felt it it was bad for my liver and kidneys which had already been damaged by other prescription drugs. He told me not to worry about it. A few months later the FDA demanded the manufacturer reduce the amount to 300mg.
I thought it was 325mg
@@destructodisk9074 Buprenorphine, Tizanidine, Baclofen, Lyrica, Ashwaghanda, Valerian root, Kava. These are what keep me sane with all my injuries and scoliosis.
@destructodisk9074 I highly suggest a TENS unit. It has been extremely helpful for me, also with spondylosis
1g of paracetamol is a normal adult dose.
The VA gave me a gram of Tylenol in my IV while waiting for my appendectomy. That was probably the only time Tylenol has actually worked for me. But of course that was a one time thing
One doctor once said, when we have a headache we reach for a pain reliever and a glass of water. He wondered, how often was it the water and not the pain killer that actually made us feel better? Dehydration is a big problem, that no one is looking at, too.
I’ve had chronic pain almost my entire life, and I’ve always been told by doctors that some people are either ibuprofen people or Tylenol people. I was an ibuprofen person - those giant horse pill Tylenol’s they kept prescribing me weren’t doing anything.
I find Tylenol works fine on fevers or as an additive with other medications when my pain is especially bad. But on its own, yeah, it doesn't do crap for me as far as killing pain.
Same for me. Tylenol is a liver toxin.
That seems reasonable to me. Tylenol doesn't do anything for me, but Ibuprofen does [though I'm not supposed to take it due to meds I'm on, unfortunately]..
I'm the exact opposite...ibuprofen does nothing for me.
That's probably why these studies are inconclusive...each person has to find out what works best for them.
Tylenol has never helped my fibromyalgia or cero-neg arthritis. Gabapentin, however, has been lowkey god-tier.
I have definitely found acetaminophen's effects completely imperceptible for most things I've used it for, like stress headaches and minor infections. (As a kid I wasn't totally convinced that painkillers were even real, because my parents kept buying paracetamol and I was too young to understand the difference.) Ibuprofen works for me WAY better. It's night and day.
Luckily I haven't got into any chronic pain yet, so I've never taken enough to cause side effects.
My experience, too. Good old aspirin or ibuprofen works for me. Acetaminophen has no effect, but I will keep it in mind the next time I have a craniotomy.
Tylenol is alright for headache and fever. For everything else forget it. I think it would make a lot more sense to pair oxycodone with ibuprofen.
That’s super interesting cause for me I’ve typically found acetaminophen worked for most stuff for a good while but ibuprofen never really did, now I can’t even take NSAIDS cause of it doesn’t mix well with my other meds I already take.
I've found acetaminophen and pretty much all NSAIDs to either do nothing or so little it's completely imperceptible. Even with minor body aches it doesn't seem to help. The only thing that has actually helped me is hydrocodone and kratom which the first is obviously an opiod and the latter working on opiod receptors (I honestly don't know much about how it works), I'd say that they both work atleast 100x better. Would anyone else say that it works 100x better or is my body/brain just weird?
You were skeptical of medication as a child? That’s amazing. I give medicine to my child and they say “I feel better!” and I’m like “What? You just swallowed it. Give it more time 😅”
It seems to work best for CNS pain such as headaches and nerve pain. It also appears to have a synergistic effect with NSAIDs. In my own experience, it helps relive migraine pain better than an NSAID alone.
Yeah, that's about all I use it for. Dehydration/caffeine headache, nerve damage pain (bad car wreck), and fever reduction.
If the pain has to do with inflammation (which is just about everything else) I take the drug that specifically reduces inflammation.... Works like charm every time.
Nerve pain comes in a couple different flavors though, tylenol might help a small area that was injured but stuff like neuropathy is famously tricky to treat (not even opioids work for it sometimes!)
I've found that the modern anti-migraine medications work best for me - quickly. I've been lucky in that I'd average a true migraine around once per year, randomly, not a seasonal one that'd be likely allergies and hence, not a migraine.
And oddly, after the third time I've gotten the anti-migraine medications, I've not had a migraine since and it's now been a touch over a decade since my last one.
Flip side is now I get far more frequent scillinating scotoma, typically ever couple of months, but those last around 20 minutes and rarely cycle into a chain (say, once to twice a year an episode might repeat, leaving me nonfunctional visually for half an hour to 45 minutes (aka, I can read with only great difficulty in comprehending what I'm seeing)), zero pain, still have aura.
The body, don't have to understand it, but one does have to live in it.
This is hilarious to me bc I have near constant headaches and nerve pain and Tylenol has never done anything for me
I've never used it for anything but headaches. Works well for those.
I’m a chronic pain patient. Acetaminophen caused problems with my liver enzymes. After my PCP allowed me to use single ingredient opioid pills, my liver went back to being happy and my pain was still kept down to a dull roar. I try to avoid NSAIDs due to their own side effects.
opioids work, Tylenol doesn't
@@DonaldHendleyBklynvexRecords
^^^ THIS! And yet, getting opioids from a doctor is like pulling hen’s teeth.
Back pain, had to take codeine/paracetamol drug. So sever pain that i had to take the max 4000mg/day of paracetamol to get the maximum of amount of codeine. Yeah yeah, shouldn't take more then 3000mg per day but that's bull. Just need to be monitored. And as the doctors didn't want to up the drug into more potent opiate (the nordics and the backwards mentality that suffering precedes good pain management), i was liver tested every six months. Three years later finally got my back surgery and could kick the pills. 6 months after that, my liver tests were still screaming red for the stress test. Good thing i didn't drink at all during the time....
Agreed. Doctors told me to swap every 4 hours, Ibuprofen one dose, Acetaminophen the other. One worked, the other didn't.
@@CrochetIsLife54 yea even the fentanyl crisis is no excuse, give ppl what they need and ODs will continue but so will ppls relief, ppl will OD on water if it's in them to do so, but we can't make relief out of thin air or water if I make any sense
I have tension headaches, and people are always surprised that acetaminophen works for me…but it does…quickly. For my mom too, and we are medically similar.
I can attest to that
Same! Tylenol works better for me than most things, at least for my headaches.
I take at least one dose of acetaminophen daily because it helps reduce my headaches. For other pain I use ibuprofen, but they don't work on my headaches nearly as well
@@gingerscholar152 As a physical therapist with a master of science in manual therapy, it might be interesting to know that acetaminophen or paracetamol can CAUSE headaches, especially if you take it 15 or more days per 30 days. Same goes for NSAID's. Also triptans if you take it for 10 or more days per 30 days. Of course there needs to be a logical starting point of the headache occurence and medication use, you take the medication and only later develop a headache. Or you take the medication for the headache, which helps, but later on you start to get a headache that feels a bit different than before.
Plus there have been many studies that indicate that a combination of manual therapy, massage, neck and upper back exercise and posture help more than acetaminophen (or paracetamol) and NSAID's.
Yes! When I have headaches I’m always reaching for Tylenol… and lots of caffeine for some reason
For those allergic to NSAIDs like me, Tylenol may be the only option OTC. It does not perform miracles, but is very effective for some very specific types of headaches.
It's my backup plan for headaches. it works more often than it doesn't, and when it doesn't, usually means it wasn't some regular headache. I DO get migraines. it DOES NOT help with those. But it absolutely is useless for muscle pain. Lower back, upper back, ate hardwood floor on roller skates, ate ice on ice skates, yeah, doesn't help for those.
Yeah, I used to get headaches a lot and when I had my surgery I took it and I didn’t have a single headache for that time
Have my upvote. Small amounts of NSAIDs cause me to bleed out uncontrollably and I’m 0/2 in surgeries because of it. Doctors wouldn’t even take me seriously until they started having to fill out adverse incident reports which can affect their insurance premiums. It’s mildly effective at headaches and joint pain for me but it’s literally my only option if my other medications aren’t enough.
I WISH acetaminophen worked for my headaches. Ibuprofen (and sometimes aspirin) are the only OTC meds that work for me. You can imagine how awful being pregnant is when you suffer from frequent headaches - and worse, migraines. We NEED more safe options for headache sufferers 😢
@@jahbern rimengepant works very well for me but it’s $150/pill before insurance in the US. Eltriptans also work and they just moved to the generic a few years ago so it’s cheaper but still $30-40/ pill before insurance. If you haven’t consulted a doctor I’d do so because these medications really do bring relief to many people and you don’t need to take huge amounts of OTC meds.
I have inflammatory arthritis and other chronic pain issues, and it definitely helps me. I’m very aware of the amount of pain I’m in at any given time, and it makes a difference. You couldn’t pry my Tylenol bottle out of my cold dead hands 😂
Ditto. I have chronic pain from hEDS and POTS and literally can't function without Tylenol.
@@angellacanfora I’m in the process of getting diagnosed with EDS! I don’t know what subtype yet, but hypermobility has done a number on my joints 😕
Same; arthritis in a knee and ankle from an accident. Acetaminophen is the only one that works well. Naproxen is about 50% as effective and Ibuprofen does nothing for me. I still try to only take 2 doses a day, no more than 3 on a bad day...limit is 4 doses.
Yay! I've found my people 😂 it's the same for me.
Tylenol has a lot of benefits aside from being a fever, reducer and pain management I have EDS and mast cell activation syndrome. Tylenol doesn't do a lot for my pain but when I'm having a really bad attack/reaction and Benadryl doesn't help, Tylenol will.
I knew for years that acetaminophen didn't work for me, it was only when I turned 35 that my family doctor told me that I have Gilbert's syndrome so Tylenol does nothing for me. I felt pretty validated but also kind of mad. For years other doctors and nurses kept telling me that it works and I was mistaken. Constantly telling me how wrong I was made me distrust the medical establishment for years
That's interesting to me. I also have Gilbert's Syndrome, but have found that it seems to work for me
I have Gilbert’s syndrome, but acetaminophen worked well for me when I broke my back. I’m very sensitive to opioid drugs; they make me sick, but acetaminophen seemed to work for me. The nurses were surprised I didn’t want codeine.
I also have Gilbert's syndrome, I've not heard of it preventing Tylenol from working.
Really should emphasize the “for me” part. Others will think Tylenol doesn’t work at all, when it’s more that you’re a very specific case where the drug doesn’t work as well.
If you take it with vodka it works.
I always thought that any pain that Tylenol could deal with was a pain that was so minor that it could just be ignored.
Acetaminophen was instrumental in pain management for my wife's ear infection; she couldn't use ibuprofen 24/7 because of risk to kidneys, but just OTC Tylenol had a similar effect on the pain, so alternating doses was a safe and effective way of getting her through. It absolutely does work.
Same experience here as well for my wife who lives with Lupus and Fibromyalgia. NSAIDs relieve pain better but with a higher risk to organs for her.
If you believe it works any placebo can work fairly well, especially with pain. Personal experience is worth nothing.
I’m really glad it helped her, but there’s no way of knowing it wasn’t placebo
Tylenol damages the liver which is the organ that defends the kidneys
Tylenol is one of the most common medications to cause liver damage and hospitalizations
I think, personally, acetaminophen works for pain related to swelling or fevers, but not really other kinds of pain. That’s why it works well for childbirth (as someone who’s been there, a good bit of the pain is due to swelling because of all the bloodwork moving in and out to repair things).
Analysis revealed a 20% higher risk of autism and a 30% higher risk of ADHD for children who had prolonged exposure to acetaminophen during fetal development.
@@Greg042869Debunked. Also, people who take official medicine go to real doctors.
@@Greg042869Do you think fetal development occurs during childbirth? lol what.
@@Greg042869 source?
@@Greg042869 citation needed
I've been telling people that it doesn't do anything for me for years, and they always look at me like I'm the weird one. The only time I've ever noticed it working was when I had an IV of it for a very bad tonsillitis, and even then while it made my fever go down a bit, it still didn't make the pain go away. I don't know if it doesn't work at all or if it only works on certain situations, but still I'm glad to know that I'm not crazy.
Every medication works differently on every person, it may just be ineffective for you. NSAIDS make me bleed out uncontrollably, if that was the case for everyone not only would all of them be pulled from store shelves, there would be massive lawsuits and cries to reform the drug approval system. Be glad you haven’t suffered any severe reactions from common medicines.
@sedmikrasky im guessing ibuprofen probably works well for you then? ive noticed if acetaminophen works for you, ibuprofen doesnt and vice versa
Immunities to various meds are relatively common. My mum doesn't process opioids normally and they just don't work on her. Same for some oldschool local anesthesia - which she found out during what ended up being a live tonsillectomy 😱
Nope, you're not crazy (not for that anyway). Tylenol has always been useless for me except for reducing a fever.
😢🤓🍻
Doesn't work for me either. In Sweden where I live , they prescribe it for everything. I read up on paracetamol sensitivity, turns out I have it. So now I have in my records that I have a sensitivity to it.
I’ve been saying this for years. Tylenol has never worked for me for anything other than a fever. Naproxen was a life changer for me when it became otc. I use it for any & all pain, one dose usually makes a difference, & it works for 12 hours, instead of having to take something every 4-6 hours.
Same, except I've always been an ibuprofen guy
The pain relief is directly related to fever reduction, because there is pain directly related to fevers
Just the opposite for me, Naproxen does absolutely nothing for me, and Tylenol works for certain things.
@@vangu2918 bummer
Most pain people feel on a day to day basis is due to inflammation which is what NSAIDs are for anyway. Acetaminophen is better for CNS and definitely fever reducing.
Acetaminophen on it's own seems pretty useless to my body but combined with aspirin and caffeine, it's the holy combo for headaches, which makes it possible for me to take a lower medication dosis
Amen to that!
This explains a lot because I’ve never had it work and caffeine also doesn’t do anything so it probably makes it useless to me for whatever reason which sucks
BC powder!
Are you sure it's not just the aspirin that work?
Goodies powders. When my lupus was at its worst I ran on that stuff. When I had a lupus headaches I would mix it with kratom and chase it with bourbon. Now I rarely take anything for pain but keep it just in case.
I've been using it for tension headaches for many years. I notice a difference within an hour. Also, anytime I have a sore throat, I take some, and that has always helped. I don't get fevers as an adult, but I recall it bringing my temperature down as a kid.
Did you just say you don’t get fevers as an adult…? What adult doesn’t get fevers?! I get a few every year at least.
@@TGFMusic I'm 43. Up until I was 18, I probably got one a year. Since then, I have had one. That was seven years ago. I'm rarely sick in general, though. In July, I got my first cold since January 2020.
@@TGFMusicYou should rethink your hygiene habits. And habits like touching your face with unwashed hands. Less exposure, the better. All doorknobs, keyboards, phones, laptops, there's lots of things commonly touched that don't get cleaned and can get very gross. I get a fever maybe once every other year myself. But you could also be in a bad job environment for that or something.
You don't have to be germaphobic, just be mindful and reduce.
@@TGFMusic Maybe they don't have children? Mine are little germ factories.
I’m not a chronic pill-popper, I maybe take it one or two times a year, but for the times I taken it Tylenol never noticeably worked for me. Ibuprofen does make a noticeable difference.
Same, I’ve known since childhood that Tylenol doesn’t work for me. This whole video makes so much sense lol.
That's another factor. Humans are different from each other, sometimes very different, particularly on the biochemical level.
A drug that works for 90% might fail to work for 5% and cause actual harm in another 5%.
Or a drug might only work for 5% while the other 95% get no benefit or get some degree of harm.
Ibuprofen is very effective against toothaches.
I have similar experience, though my NSAID preference is Naproxen (common brand name Aleve).
@@nickiemcnichols5397yesss, ibuprofen is definitely good for teeth pain. I know from personal experience.
Acetaminophen is usually what my dad would give me whenever I had a fever to bring it down and it would work. When I had a covid back in 2021 my biggest problem was a very high fever and the only medication after trying various things under the supervision of my doctor (which happened to be my cousin so I was incredibly fortunate to have somebody around the clock to turn to while I was incredibly sick at home and unable to travel anywhere for assistance) was acetaminophen. During that time I would log my body temperature every hour and report it all to her at home to monitor my condition it would bring my fever down from around 104° to ~100° in around 30-45 minutes and keep me there for about 5-6 hours. I wonder if the reviews found any data for fever reduction, or did the review exclusively look for evidence for pain relief?
They're just referring to pain relief in the video. It does work as a fever reducer.
Anecdotally (+ over many years) I've had covid / other viral a few times, and they're _always_ preceded by a very distinct type of headache (like a caffeine headache but harsher). This headache -- which comes with fever -- is suppressible with acetaminophen, one OTC every 4-6 hours for a couple days.
Can confirm with my own anecdotal evidence - when my infant son had covid with a fever I used it every 8 hours or whenever his temp when up for 2 days, taking his temperature constantly in that time - fevers being so dangerous in babies - I was beyond grateful it worked.
it's used in almost all fever medications like niquil so that makes sense
Yup my doctor recommended that I take acetaminophen for my fever when I had covid. It made me more comfortable and able to sleep.
Paracetamol as it is named in Europe (exactly the same drug as Tylenol) works very well for me. A slight headache, 500 mg and I am OK within 1 hour. Half a year ago my dentist pulled a wisdom tooth. 500mg twice or 3 times daily for 3 days kept the pain away. The effect of one dose lasted approximately 10 hours, so the pain came back but disappeared again after next dose. Same experience a couple of years ago when I had a tooth implant.
I agree, for dental pain or toothache pain, it definitely works. While it doesn't eliminate the pain, it makes it able to be tolerated until you're able to be treated
Tylenol must affect different people differently. For me it has no noticeable effect on any kind of pain. It works well for reducing a fever and that is the only reason I use it. 🤔🤓🍻
I've pretty much the entire opposite effect with paracetamol. Ibuprofen works best for me, followed with the longer acting naproxen. Due to the longer half-life, I prefer the ibuprofen, as I've long been a minimum intervention for maximal benefit in my treatment philosophy.
And as a military medic, I started so many IV infusions in the field, one would start moving cases of the IV bags in the morning and be well late for bed by the time you've reached the quantity I've infused over the decades. Oxygen, hundreds of liters over the decades. Other drugs, minimum intervention for maximal benefit, with one emergency that was protracted due to a lack of evacuation capabilities at the time literally consuming a substantial amount of our drug kit for a force of 1200 men. Suffice it to say, the Division Commander was quite angry at both expense and extreme risk over such a capricious decision against all evacuations at that time. As in, really bad career move, Sir.
as someone that had quite a few headaches earlier in life it worked very well for that. As far a other pains I cannot say if it worked or not. Seemed to work for my mom after bipass surgery not wanting to take the addictive oxycodones.
@@BrianK-zz4fk I don't take anything for headaches. My headaches are intense(like a knife stabbing through my temple) but only last about 30 seconds or less.
They are rare (a few times a year) and nothing is going to take effect fast enough to help. Luckily those are the only headaches I get, ever.
🤔🤓🍻
The issue with acetaminophen for me, as someone who has dealt with debilitating migraines, is that when you are in extreme, unrelenting pain, the tendency is to take over the recommended dose. And with acetaminophen, even small amounts over the recommended dose can lead to permanent liver damage. Higher doses of ibuprophen might not be advisable, but it takes a lot more over the recommendation to cause serious and permanent damage. That being said, I don't think either work that well or at all for the types of headaches that I suffer from, so taking either of them is more like a forlorn hope.
When I was a teen I used to get migraines really bad and Tylenol did nothing. Advil was the only thing that helped
There are actual drugs for migraines that work 1000x better than acetaminophen. I take Sumatriptan for mine, gone in 2 hours. Talk to your doctor
I've never been tempted to take over the recommend dose of anything. They aren't suggestions, they are rules. Going against then in any way is to fundamentally misunderstand the situation.
Seconding what @pyrogreg8 said. Talk to a doctor. There are specific meds for migraines. There are also ones that help prevent them. Since I started taking Topiramate (I think the brand name is Topamax?), I hardly ever have them and when I do I have a med for it.
That's not true. It's categorically false actually. And as someone who nearly died from using nsaids as prescribed... it actually angers me that you'd say that. Both medications have their place. Neither medication should be abused. And they work better together.
Inappropriate use of NSAIDs causes esophagus scarring, Barrett's Syndrome, GERD, chronic ulcers (not the kind you can take antibiotics for), & kidney damage. And QUICKLY. We're talking from healthy to almost dead in months. I'm one of the reasons prescribing instructions for NSAIDs changed & why there are warnings all over the bottles and boxes now. Me and hundreds of others who nearly died in the early 2000s as doctors were being told to prescribe fewer opiates, they were seeking alternatives. It is over 20yrs later and I am STILL dealing with ramifications. I will be on a kidney destroying medication, FOR LIFE, so daily functioning doesn't absolutely destroy my stomach & esophagus.
Acetaminophen will take year to DECADES of abuse to cause permanent damage... and you have to combine it with alcohol usage for it to do serious damage at otherwise safe doses.
Also, migraine medication is acetaminophen, aspirin, & caffeine. It's highly effective for actual migraines. However, there are headaches similar to migraines that aren't migraines. A Cranial Cervical Instability Headache will feel like a migraine hooked up with a tension headache & migraine meds aren't going to do jack for that on their own. You need to realign the cervical vertebrae & allow the ligaments to rest... since that headache is caused by overextension of the neck due to hypermobility. Cluster headaches are another type of headache that can feel like a migraine. Opiates & wait it out. If you have a particularly nasty migraine or a CCI headache... the ER cocktail works well. You can ask ER nurses & please ask your doctor... but I was taught 2 naproxen or aspirin (full strength) 2 acetaminophen, 2 benedryl (has to be the first gen antihistamine because it needs to cause you to relax & make you sleepy), & a shot of espresso or big cup of coffee. The acetaminophen amplifies the naproxen/aspirin... the caffeine is a vasodilator which helps the meds circulate faster, & the Benedryl will relax your entire body. Double down by pairing this with heat on the extremities & cold where it hurts. This will keep bare minimum blood going to the extremities & max blood going to where it hurts, therefore getting more of the medication where it needs to be. I like hot hands in gloves & socks, blankets, & a PT grade ice pack meant for the lower back right on the back of my head & a small ice pack on my forehead.
I never had any effect from acetamenophen. I was told 30 years ago that I was one of "10% of people" who are "immune" from it's effect. Now I fully understand. THANK YOU!!
Same here. Has never worked for me. Naproxin does the trick for me on the occasion I get some back pain.
My kid’s neurosurgeon says Tylenol is only good as a fever reducer. It’s use for pain is minimal at best. This was 13 years ago that he told me that. I always thought it was useless. I preferred aspirin or Advil. Honestly Orudis KT was the best.
I wonder what the percentage is for people that it does work for, but aspirin, ibuprofen and aleve don't.
For me it works for everything, even better then opioids for some reason...
@@azorthegreat2112 placebo effect is real.
I've assumed for decades that it just doesn't work for my specific anatomy, it's kind of nice to know that it might not be a me-issue
Physiology*, not anatomy. Pharmaceuticals concern physiology. Right there with ya, though ❤
I have Crohn's disease and NSAID's cause me to bleed internaly nearly every time. This basically leaves me with acetaminophen and I can say with absolute confidence that it does indeed help.
On the subject of OTC pain relievers aspirin always deserves a shout out for its life saving potential / blood thinning properties. Always have stocked and give 325mg to a loved one during a tight chest pain episode. Yours truly, a registered nurse
Aspirin's blood thinning is also potentially life risking for some people, surely you're also aware of that..
It's amazing how a home remedy made from willow bark became an effective worldwide pain medication. They give us a clue in the chemical name of aspirin; acetylsalicylic acid. Salix alba, the White Willow, is why that "salic" is in the chemical name!
Thanks for mentioning my study :)
Thank you for the excellent work!
Not all pains can be treated equally. Depending on the type of pain you have some medications are better, while others will not work at all.
The most glaring examples of this are migraines. A true migraine (as some people call any headache a migraine, which is incorrect) will show little to no response to regular pain medication, including opioids. To treat a migraine you have to use vasoactive drugs that reverse the underlying process causing the migraine. And those vasoactive drugs aren't pain releavers, so they won't work for other causes of pain, only migraines and other related conditions.
Chronic pain is also hard to treat, because once pain becomes chronic the nerve cells will send pain signals constantly, without any stimulus, and that means there isn't even a target for pain killers to act upon. In this case you need to use medication that stabilizes the neurons such that they don't fire as often to lower the pain, and these medications are usually classified as antidepressants or antiepileptics, which again aren't painkillers.
There is a stark lack of training regarding pain management, which is ironic considering it is one of the main reasons people seek doctors to begin with. And the doctors that are best trained to help patients with pain are paliative care specialists, and so many patients will refuse to go see one because of the negative connotation paliative care has, feeling as if it's a sign they're dying or that the condition they have is severe.
Acetaminophem is a good tool, but it's the most basic tool, and it certainly is not enough for everyone.
It's funny because I have had migraines and headaches for a long time. I'm really sensitive to stuff I guess like sunlight or not drinking enough water and sometimes that isn't enough. Aceto kind a works sometimes but I prefer to normally take NSAIDS because I've always been scared of liver damage from them. I've never had problems with any of them though. A lot of times i've avoided aceto because of drinking too I don't wanna put more strain on my liver. I have had brain fog as well and fatigue but I never connected them all together and I decided to get a prescription of adderall for brain fog and shockingly It tends to do very good at stopping my headaches, brain fog, and i'm not constantly tired. I noticed while on ephedrine that I tend to get significantly less headaches as well. I am a physics major so I don't have the greatest knowledge of drugs and their interactions but I do dabble a little and have done some research.
I noticed when id have ephedrine as well a lot of my headaches aren't as present, I don't know if increased dopamine levels or whatever vaso properties of the drugs have done it but it is definitely sometime I have noticed
Very well said. Chronic pain needs to be treated differently, and by the time many patients seek help, the pain is chronic.
For myself, Tylenol was effective for my bone pain associated with rods, cages and may screws in my spine. It has allowed me to return to work and hike. 💕
As someone who went through a craniotomy, I knew it would be one of the two. That pain would go away within an hour or so. Also, it worked for my IMRT brain RT, though not as well as it did for the craniotomy. I'm going to guess that wasn't well studied, because studies on brain cancer tend not to go deep enough into QoL issues and because of the cognitive impairments a lot of people with brain cancer have can skew data.
Fentanyl also worked for the craniotomy, but I think I was only on it for a day. Then norco for one day, then dexamethasone and Tylenol (the Tylenol as needed), then Tylenol only as needed.
I think we also don't have any doubts that fentanyl is an effective painkiller.
I was also given Tylenol (liquid IV) when I had my craniotomy. 😊
Incredibly interesting! In my time in the pharmacy I remember reading it’s only effective for about 40 % of the population.
Personally, I’m not a friend of it considering how easily it can be overdosed due to being in combination products without people realising - and how dangerous such an overdose can quickly become.
Personally I noticed decades ago that acetaminophen based medications do essentially nothing to relieve pain for me. Later on my mother offered me several different acetaminophen based medications because they didn't work for her (she never checks the active ingredients). So I had just assumed it was a weird genetic thing. Not sure if its just much more common than I thought or if it indeed just doesn't work at all.
another commenter mentioned Gilbert's syndrome as a cause for this. i know nothing about it, just wanted to transfer that term down here so you'd see it and maybe be able to check it out
It works for me for headaches and mild pains from stiff/sore muscles. Though I always need to take 2 pills and it takes a while to kick in.
NSAIDs I can get by with 1 pill and they work probably 25% faster, and on more intense pains. But I limit my use of them because of the side effects.
i find it useless for me too, but then again novocain and the rest of the cain family don't have much effect on me pain wise. Made dentist's fun
I didn’t hear any mention about it as an antipyretic. That’s pretty objective and easy to measure.
Acetaminophen does work well as an antipyretic, as do aspirin and ibuprofen. It is the analgesic function is what is in doubt. Although it appears that this is highly variable based on the comments.
Nice video Reid and the whole SciShow team! Thanks for holding it down for so long, the GOAT of well researched informational Science UA-cam
It never did anything for me
Try taking a whole bottle at once and let us know if you do anything for you!!😂
When I was a teenager, I tried to kill myself, by taking a bunch of pills in the medicine cabinet. Of all the things I took, which included a number of prescription drugs, it was the over-the-counter Tylenol that the doctor was most concerned about.
Yeah, with opioid and benzo overdose, it’d be pretty obvious if you were od’ing as you’d quickly lose consciousness, however with Tylenol overdose your liver has quite a bit of time before it fails, and then a bit more time before you die. Up to a week in some circumstances. If you’d made it to hospital and you were awake and talking, the Tylenol is really the only concern.
My 74 year old father was stricken with arthritis last year. His hands swelled, he could barely walk , stand or sit without aid. He started taking extra strength Tylenol every six hours. Within an hour of taking it he could walk up stairs again and said his joint pain was noticably less. It took some time for the swelling in his hands to go away, but today he has most of his mobility back again. He also went to therapy sessions which helped a lot.
I know this is only anecdotal, but those "clinical" tests you mentioned seem to be hugely flawed. He and I will continue to take Tylenol. Also, he is on blood thinners and Tylenol is the only pain reliever that is safe for him to take.
My organization routinely gives the Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen combo.
We're told that for certain pain, it is as effective as a mild opioid due to the way the act synergistically in the body.
Anecdotally, I've personally experienced relief from the combo when one or the other couldnt eliminate a headache.
I've never had opioids so I can't personally comment there today, but I know that I'll be getting some Tramadol following dental surgure next week so I'll be able to update that particular point then 😂
Yeah if I'm hurting, and if I have both available, I'm using both at the same time 😂
Any update on your Tramadol experience? I have no idea why I'm suddenly so invested in this 😂
@curioustill haha that's fantastic!
Honestly, for what I'm experiencing, it feels pretty similar.
I'm tempted to be dumb and just go without any pain meds for the day to see how much they are actually doing.
From what I can tell, though, the main difference was that I feel a little more relaxed with the tramadol, which makes sense given that it's an opioid. That said, that comes with feeling ever so slightly altered.
I did come across a paper somewhere saying that Tramadol isn't particularly effective for pain following dental surgery so it's possible that it may be more effective for other types of pain but I haven't done much more diving in than that lol.
I'll get back at you with what I decide to do lol.
@@curioustill, and just like that the experiment is over. The dentist gave me amoxicillin which you are not supposed to take with tylenol due to increased chance of bleeding. I didn't have any issues yesterday but won't be continuing that lol.
@@alertsquirrel thanks for your detailed updates!!!!
Paracetamol is actually pretty useful for me, I use it occasionally as a booster when my pain is worse, and when I’m in pain in hospital a paracetamol drip is really good!
The chronic pain team described paracetamol as like the “gravy” of a good meal, it helps compliment other painkillers, and generally when taken carefully is useful.
To be fair, stuff like placebo effects are always important to note as well. The Placebo effect is very strong. When actually testing to see if medicines work, you ALWAYS need to check it against a placebo.
Even in cases where drugs DO work, the placebo effect can still make their effects even more pronounced.
I mean, either way, if the medicine is working for you then thats great. (especially if doctors are prescribing it). My only point in saying all this is to just keep in mind that personal accounts of whether or not a medicine works for you may not actually be all that helpful since you havent controlled for other potential variables.
Paracetamol definitely works.
@@KingLundh Placebo also works just as well in most cases, is the argument here.
Paracetamol is one of the better painkillers (better then ibuprofen) when you build a level. 3 times spread out a day and after 2 days it really kills a lot of pain.
I saw a study which noted a 70% reduction in arthritis pain using placebo. Placebo definitely works!
This confirms my observations. Acetominephin seems to work for anything caused by inflammation (headaches, sprained ankles, bruising, bug bites) but not anything else. It does nothing for a sore throat, but regular old honey cures that. I always try acetominephin first, if I have a mysterious pain. With a lot of common conditions, acetominephin seems to only alleviate not eliminate the pain. That's consistent with the idea that it is primarily addressing inflammation. I'm fairly pain tolerant, and I need to remain alert, so I personally don't usually bother eliminating pain. Acetominephin certainly works for my purposes, much of the time, because my goal is to make the pain not a distraction rather than entirely take it away.
Been wanting to say this for a while now, but Reid you do a really good job at this. You deliver the info well, and make watching the video just that much better. Plus you seem like you'd be a G that'd be cool to have a beer with too. lol 🍻
I don't know about chronic illnesses but it gets rid of my headaches every time. I also remember it working well as a cough suppressant back when I had covid. It was pretty much the only way I could get any sleep back then.
It's worked for me on headaches, too. It's the only thing it works on, but to balance that, other meds (otc or prescript) have either done poorly or not worked at all on my headaches, so... *shrugs*
Tylenol has never been prescribed as a cough suppressant, it doesn't work that way.
@@Sarah-said It reduces fever symptoms. In any case, I'm only speaking from personal experience. I went from coughing every 3 seconds without it to coughing every minute with it. It was a very noticeable difference.
Back in 2015 I had the worst tonsillitis of my life; the EMT told me it was safe to combine acetaminophen and ibuprofen to get a higher dose of pain-killing activity than would be safe from one or the other on its own. Sure enough, for that period the acetaminophen+ibuprofen combo was the only way I could sleep.
Reid: "Doctors have been prescribing this drug without really knowing the efficacy or side effects."
Also Reid: "Follow your doctor's advice." 😂
(I really hope doctors are keeping up-to-date with good research and also challenging their pre-existing biases!)
If you have no medically background then you’re still better off listening to a doctor
But it's "Safe and Effective(TM)!" If you have any concerns at all, then you don't "Trust Our Front Line Heros(TM)!"
Every few years the codes for building houses will be updated to reflect new best practices, adapting technology, and better understanding of safety measures. What that DOESN'T mean is that we should all start DIYing our own electricity.
A doctor is a professional you hire to work on your "house". Sometimes you get a shitty contractor. But you should still hire a doctor.
@@Museofmemory Exactly. I am not going to try to replace a malfunctioning kidney on my own.
Science is a process. We will never know everything. We will have to move forward and make decisions, we just reavaluate that science as new knowledge comes to light.
Going to be honest, I only use acetaminophen for fevers, and yes, it is effective for that. Took it when I had a 105 degree fever with strep a couple years ago, and both acetaminophen and ibuprofen worked well to control it.
I took in once in the last 20 years. For a horrible sore throat and it worked.
Yes acetaminophen is a good antipyretic. The question is more if it actually works for pain.
@@audeforcione-lambert4293 My issue is that the video asks if it does anything, and it does. I just found it odd that the video made it sound like pain is the only thing Tylenol is used for.
Acetaminophen is a godsend for flu/fevers and migraines for me.
I can say, without doubt, Tylenol has helped me with tooth aches. Went from keeping me up to nothing for pain. Once it wore off, the pain would come back.
I had 2 surgeries very close to each other in 2022. One was to remove part of my large intestine, they used zero opiods and only acetaminophen. That pain management was awesome! My thumb surgery included opiods. The pain has been awful. Clearly, acetaminophen works well in the digestive tract, as you suggested. That should not be under played.
From my own experience, it works for mild menstrual cramps but not as well as ibuprofen. But a combo of both work best. Also when I got Covid, acetaminophen worked very well for the body aches and for sore throat. I definitely could tell when I needed to take another dose at that time lol.
Ibuprofen is the ticket for me (double dose, of course). A while back, my dentist wanted to write me a prescription for super-strength ibuprofen, which isn't cheap. I turned her down because I already had a giant bottle of generic OTCs at home. Just up the pill count to match the dosage and you're golden.
I would love to see a follow up to this about the pairing of acetaminophen and hydrocodone or oxycodone. Does this truly make the opioid work better, or simply make the prescriber feel like they aren't "handing out narcotics?"
It does seem to make the opioid work better, or at least work at a similar level of pain management with a reduced dose of opioid
Oh, that "sinergistic effect" note mad me laugh when I read it in the pdr. Yes, I'm a professional patient and so read the pdr so I know when I'm being lied to. It's to make the prescriber feel better about not handing out pure opioids and to reduce the overdose risk. You're less likely to down half a bottle of hydrocodone if you know your liver will fly the coop if you do so. Well, some people are.
@@SarafinaSummers Well if you look at the literature, there's quite a lot of evidence that points at its synergistic and opioid sparing properties.
Imo even if it does make them work "better" it's probably a by a very small degree and the real practical reason to prescribe them like that it's 100% to make them feel safer about prescribing it since it helps avoid patients abusing it or accidentally overdosing. If you are in such a degree of pain as to need to take opioids, taking paracetamol with them is almost like having a filler with some placebo effect and from personal experience I can't say that having them mixed with paracetamol made me feel any better than just taking the thing.
@@sedmikrasky. That's understandable, it's not meant to make you feel any better, it's meant to make a smaller amount of opioid go further. And the paracetamol-opioid combo isn't just for out of hospital use, it''s also used intra-operatively and with acute patients, where the argument that the chance of abuse is lower doesn't really apply.
Thank you for making such a nuanced video on this topic. Seems like we just have to wait for more evidence for now. Disappointing but it's better to work with some uncertainty than with wrong assumptions.
I feel like, in the UK we all kind of do the same thing; Paracetamol for a mild headache, Ibuprofen for anything worse, both when you're really fed up. Stronger meds are available ofc but that seems to be the go-to.
I stopped taking Tylenol in my early adulthood as I never felt any different after taking it than I did before.
It's often used as a fever reducer, I would like to see the studies on that effect.
Oh that works for most people, I've seen drops in two degrees for people using it while very sick! ( From 38 to 36c. )
Ibuprofen has always been my go-to painkiller, since I have always said "paracetamol just doesn't seem to do anything for me". Nice to know I was ahead of the curve on that!
The best pain killer I have had for my chronic pain has been alcohol. One bottle of 6% and the pain goes away for like 12 hours.
Wasn't mentioned, but I've found that efficacy varies widely by individual. For example, it works great for me for many things, but doesn't do anything for my spouse except fever reduction.
Anecdotally I tried acetaminophen for many years when I was young, and could tell you without doubt that it did _nothing_ for me. So I quit using it and switched to ibuprofen, which _does_ work. Then when I had some serious tooth problems I got worried about how much ibuprofen I was taking. It would relieve the tooth pain for about 4 hours and then I'd have to take more, which is against the dosage recommendations. So I thought I'd alternate with acetaminophen and see what happened. Lo and behold, it worked. And for about the same amount of time. What I took from that is acetaminophen works for some pain and not for others, and it takes experimentation to find out what that is.
You do know the dosage limit of ibuprofen is mostly because of potential liver damage and Paracetamol is worse in that regard? You can't just take two medications and essentially double the dosage limit, unless a doctor cleared it. In this case no doctor would have.
@@4203105while it's true you have to be careful when mixing medications (some can cancel each other out and others can multiply each other's intended or unintended effects), doctors definitely DO allow alternating between acetaminophen and ibuprofen for some things. I gave birth a month ago and alternating between these two exact medicines was their standard treatment for pain relief during recovery.
My anecdotal experience is that acetaminophen is great at lowering big pains, but useless at getting rid of sucky but meh pains.
My mom was big on "take Tylenol if you have any minor discomfort". I'm very "I only take meds if it's stopping me from sleeping/working". Naturally, when I follow her advice acetaminophen seems to be useless. When I trust my gut, it's ibuprophen with way less side effects.
I've had intravenous paracetamol, it works. I went from doubled up in pain to completely relaxed in about 5 seconds.
Does it work if paracetamol doesn't? they tried to give it to me last time i was in the hospital and i was like if i already tried the pill an hour ago why would it help given a different way? (especially because i dont do well with needles at all lol)
Anecdotally, can confirm.
Not a big medications guy. However, the last few years have seen me incorporating a few OTC pain meds on occasion. Ibuprofin worked. Very well. Unfortunately, it also causes a serious case of Tinnitus if I have to take it for an extended period. So I switched to Acetaminophen. It has been doing literally nothing for me the last 6 months I've made the switch. I've just been going back to IB and trying to cut back the dosage to avoid hitting the toxicity point that triggers the massive ringing.
I used to do the same, now I take a prescription called Mobic, it’s equivalent to a daily dose of ibuprofen in 1 pill
Acetaminophen was the only pain reliever that reliably worked on my period symptoms. (Like, worked better than ibuprofen.) I know it's bad for your liver, but it's always worked for me.
It also helped me work the day after I got my most recent covid booster, which always gives me flu symptoms.
As long as you have a healthy liver function AND you don't take to high doses of acetaminophen/paracetamol, you should be fine. Yes, it does have a very toxic metabolite (N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine), but your liver further metabolizes that metabolite to a non-toxic one. So if either your liver is impaired or you overdose acetaminophen you are at risk of toxicity, but as long as you know that your liver works well AND you keep following the recommended dose you don't have to worry about toxicity. :)
@@ffarkasm Also, don't drink alcohol while on Tylenol because less of the toxic metabolite will be detoxified -- i.e., Tylenol will be more risk of serious side effects to your liver.
I had a raging toothache and I couldn't see a dentist for 5 days. I took ibuprofen every 6 hours just to keep the pain down to a dull ache. I was told to take both acetaminophen and ibuprofen instead of only the latter; since the former isn't an NSAID it was okay to take both. Lo & behold my pain completely disappeared until the tooth could be pulled, not even sensitive to pressure. Just an anecdote so take it with a grain of salt but it absolutely does work for pain to some extent.
I only take it for headaches every once in a while, and it does seem to work after 20 to 30 minutes of a single dose. Never really tried to use it for anything else. But it could also be placebo effect, so *shrugs*.
Thst's my problem with the stuff. For extreme dental pain from the inflammation caused by an infected tooth, or from the root canal to fix the infected tooth, Tylenol's great. But it only works for 30-45 minutes at a pop.
The video does suggest that it works for headaches, at least tension headaches. They describe the evidence for that as 'moderate'.
It certainly helps some of the migraine pain I get and as I'm allergic to NSAIDs I don't have many other options.
Though the best thing I've had for migraines are cool packs on my head and neck.
Paracetamol is an NSAID...
try caffeine
@@DonaldHendleyBklynvexRecordsOr don't if you get frequent migraines because then you're dependent and get migraines from not having it too.
you rite , Ive noticed that too @@sourgreendolly7685
I feel your pain, being allergic to NSAIDs is so limiting on what we can take to deal with random headaches (luckly I don't get migraines). Weird thing is it started after my 30s.
Back in the early 1980s when I started my UK nurse training our chief pharmacist said he thought that the then recent switch from aspirin to paracetamol was more related to money than safety. An untreated overdose of paracetamol will lead to permanent liver damage. Aspirin was out of patent so drug companies couldnt make enough money out of it.
No idea if he was right but it wouldnt surprise me.
And now we know that aspirin is useful for other things besides pain.
He was right!!
I'm almost 70 years old and have been using aspirin for my whole life without any issues. It always seems strange when informational videos don't even mention it.⬅
I know some people experience problems with it, especially with prolonged use, but for the majority of us, it is cheap and effective.
It's way to long out of patent to bother promoting
Aspirin works better for me than Tylenol.
Aspirin thins your blood and puts you at risk of internal bleeding. That's why it isn't normally recommended except for low doses for people who need blood thinning and when you are having a heart attack.
High doses and prolonged use of aspirin can cause tinnitus.
Aspiring works as an NSAID (like ibuprofen and naproxen), but due to the irreversible platelet inhibition it has a higher risk for benefit than the usual NSAIDs, and are thus not usually recommended for general OTC use, though it remains available, at least in many places.
So for the population groups that shouldn't take NSAID's, Aspirin is not recommended, and for the population groups without heightened risk from NSAID complications, there are preferable alternatives.
I’m allergic to Acetaminophen. I found out when I was a small child and took children’s Tylenol. It triggered Reye’s Syndrome, liver failure, spinal cord swelling, etc. I almost died.
I'm allergic too, and I get doubt from so many medical professionals that it's real. I think feeling like someone stuck a cheese grater down your throat means you're allergic, especially since my mom and her mom are all allergic.
I thought Reye's Syndrome was triggered by aspirin or aspirin like compounds. I remember warnings on Pepto Bismol etc.
This is true for pretty much any medicine and does not help discuss the topic of the video.
@@Mateus01234 does relate. Because if we’re discussing safety and people having allergic reactions. People have such strong beliefs that it’s safe that if people do have bad reactions people are not gonna believe that their reactions are because of the Tylenol. That’s my take on it at least
Holy phuq mate!
Glad you're still kicking
Tylenol does nothing for any of my pain, but neither does anything else so far.
It did a number on my eldest son's liver, and my ex has to be careful not to take any, because it makes his liver enzymes shoot sky-high, too. My youngest has always avoided it because of the familial reaction to it. And suffering from chronic pain like I and my youngest son do (I've got wrecked SI joints, he's got fibro & a grumpy case of stenosis, too), we can safely say pain is very difficult to treat, as well as very difficult to study, as everyone's different.
Hey Mary, I have wreck SI joints too! Twins! It doesn't help me either. I'm getting a bilateral fusion in a couple of weeks, mostly hoping for a neutral result, like stopping the progression of the joint disease :/. Much love to you and your son!
I just had an si fusion. My recommendation is to get it fused. I can walk like a normal person about 80% of the time now. Psoriatic arthritis caused sacroiliitis in my case, I'm pushing to get the other one fused . I hope you both have as many good days as possible.
@AwkwardSquirrel13 I hope you get as much relief as I got or more. The recovery was a little rough, make sure you have a walker crutches took about 10days before i could use them. but hey they were messing around with my bone marrow lol.
@@trentgay3437 hey Trent, thanks for such lovely comments! I have complex health issues on top of this, so i already have a walker and crutches and wheelchairs! Lol! Hopefully there's some pain reduction but the surgeon is very apprehensive that this surgery won't actually help the pain. He's not had someone with my presentation, or my complex health issues on top of everything. Hence why we just have to be on the se neutral page, of here's some neutral outcomes that would still be worth it to me, stopping the progression, being able to sit up for an hour for the first time in a year, etc etc. My surgery date is Nov 1st, so just trying to rest as much as possible. Glad you got pain reduction!! Hope you can get the other one done! You deserve good days! Much love!
All I know is that, a little over 12 years ago, I began to feel strong pain in my lower left abdomen. At first I attributed it to stress symptoms (our department had been informed that we were all to be laid off sometime that year). But the pain didn't go away and in fact, got worse. When it got so bad that at times, I was doubled over in pain, I started to take 2 acetominophen pills (or caplets, whatever it was). In a short time, the pain was greatly diminished. I figured that that pain would eventually go away, and being someone who doesn't want to bother going to the doctor much (making the appt., the wait time, etc. - for something minor) I just let it go for awhile. But after about 2 weeks, and with a bit of a push from a friend, I decided to go in and get it checked out.
Turned out to be ovarian cancer and endometriosis. All I know is that the Tylenol made a HUGE difference. Could it have been placebo effect? I can't say for 100% that it wasn't but I just know that the pain would become terrible again after several hours and then get better after taking the meds. (I eventually had surgery for the issues, and a follow-up, precautionary few rounds of chemo, and am fine now).
Also, after having a Carpal Tunnel release surgery, probably about 15 or so years ago, I reacted badly to the prescribed vicodin (made me have bad nausea and vomiting). So, I stopped taking that and just used Tylenol, and I was fine.
I may suffer some future ill-effects from the medication, as I took QUITE A LOT, especially after my cancer started to cause me pain, but I just know that, at the time, it allowed me to function.
Nausea was because you're sensitive to opioids/opiates. You could have taken much less to see if that was the problem.
My wrists have carpal tunnel symptoms. I find acetaminophen to be absolutely useless for that but naproxen is immediate and effective relief. Everyone's body reacts differently, I suppose.
@@animeartist888 That's probably because carpal tunnel is caused by nerve inflammation. Tylenol doesn't really reduce inflammation, so it makes sense that naproxen would work better for that.
I'm glad you didn't die!
And to hear my friends talk about it, it is only men who deny their pain and wait to actually see a doctor.
My dark humor aside, I hope you are doing as well as you can.
Funny thing about ibuprofen, it’s also known as “Army candy”. Your leg could fall off and the military doctor will tell you “to take 2x 800mg ibuprofens and drink water”. Now that I’m retired, I’m learning how bad that medical guidance was so bad.
Acetaminophen has never noticeably decreased any pain for me, AT ALL. Ibuprophen works amazingly, although I do have to eat first, or I'll get a stomachache. Acetaminophen also makes my stomach and kidneys hurt.
Don't take anything that makes your KIDNEYS hurt!! you need those! Of course, you won't take it since it also doesn't work so there's that...
@@TysonJensen yes, but my doctor keeps trying to insist that I take acetaminophen instead of ibuprofen, I tell him I'm going to take what works and doesn't make my organs ache.
It's always had no impact on me for aches and pains. I thought I was weird but it's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks it's essentially useless. Now I want to know how an impotent drug became a cure all for everything!
I’m sure it became popular because it works great for some people (including me).
Sorry it doesn’t work for you, but believe me, it does work great for some people. It’s the most important med in my medicine cabinet.
It’s almost the only med in my medicine cabinet though, as so far I thankfully haven’t needed much medicine over my life.
My go-to for most pains and fevers is... water.
If the fever is low grade, I let it do its biological function of helping to kill off invaders.
If water and gentle stretching doesn't help with muscle or joint pain, I MIGHT take acetaminophen once that day. Usually that's enough to reduce the pain to let me keep moving things, and as most of my muscle and joint pain is from sleeping weird or doing something unexpectedly strenuous, it works out.
It didn't work on me for years, but it now alleviates headaches. It works especially well with aspirin and caffeine, like Excedrin.
Acetaminophen has never relieved pain for me. I realized this as a child, before I even knew what it really was. I had migraines and it did nothing for my migraines. For years I've told doctors that Tylenol didn't work for me. It's reassuring that other people feel this way also.
I don’t know anyone who regularly suffer from severe migraines who are helped by any pain medication of any type.
Migraines are not a good example, they are probably the poorest understood common pain.
If your doctor is surprised that it doesn’t work for migraines you need to find a better doctor because that’s extremely common.
I suffer from tension headaches every so often and paracetamol (same thing as acetaminophen but for Europe) works wonders for that.
When I can’t get a professional massage, it’s my only line of defence. If I don’t take them it’ll ramp up and get worse and worse.
Taking acetaminophen for a migraine is like trying to level a mountain with a hammer and a chisel, while you have a migraine.
Paracetamol on its own isn’t enough to stop a migraine for me either. It can help make one of the symptoms (headache) milder, but unlike sumatriptan it’s useless against all the other symptoms.
I've always felt like Acetaminophen did nothing for me- headaches, joint pain, injuries- all no effect. The only exception is when I combined painkillers. Learned that when I caught mono in high school. I had excessively high fever- Ibuprofen couldn't handle it by itself, but alternating the two worked wonders. Same when I had COVID. And when I was having horrendous joint and foot aches from a job that was apparently too much for my body to handle, adding acetaminophen in with my naproxen and ibuprofen definitely helped. So hearing that it actually changes the way we reabsorb other painkillers makes a whole lotta sense to me. I think I'll keep using it for that and stick to my usual of ibuprofen for headaches and injuries and naproxen for joint aches as before. But it feels good to be justified in my painkiller pickiness.
Extremely useful drug. Very good for regulation of high temperatures. Also, VERY dangerous in high doses.
Ibuprofen
@@MandrakeFernflower agreed, that also works well as does aspirin. UK NHS prefer to use paracetamol as they think it's more effective and has less risks of complications than NSAIDs.
More effective for pain, though? I've always thought of NSAIDs as stronger pain relievers than Tylenol.
@@lukeg3108 good for headaches, plenty use it for period pain. I would use ibuprofen for anything musculoskeletal. You can also combine paracetamol with ibuprofen as they work completely differently.
@@lukeg3108NSAIDs work in a different way that Tylenol. The AI part is anti-inflammatory, so they relieve pain by reducing swelling. I think Tylenol acts on the nerves (could be wrong but it's an action orher than reducing swelling). So it's pain dependant on which medication would work best. Sprained ankle or toothache or something the like, NSAIDs would target that type of issue. Non-inflammation issue, Tylenol might work better. But everyone reacts to medicine slightly differently, so that's not a 100% hard rule.
My daughter, who just turned 1, has 4 teeth coming in and, though we try not to give her medicine at all if we can help it, she's had a few doses of acetaminophen over the last few days. This is all fascinating to hear and think about with her because I know it does *something* but can a 1 year old get a placebo effect when she doesn't even have a good grasp of language yet? When does the placebo effect even start to work? We've been told by her pediatrician to only use acetaminophen because it's safe for her at the correct dose but do we know that for sure? I would be willing to bet these studies didn't include babies/toddlers since it's much more difficult to get approval for testing on those groups. I just have so many more questions now! And that's why I love science! 😅
I think once you're cognisant enough to grasp the concept of "medicine makes you feel better" that's when the placebo effect can start working. Whether you can vocalize it to others or not. That's just my opinion tho.
I know that I'm one of the few immune to the placebo effect altogether. When I was in my early teens my psychiatrist tried giving me placebos instead of actual meds needless to say he almost ended up with a lawsuit. Until he gave me Wellbutrin which actually helped me. (I had undiagnosed ADHD so that makes sense in retrospect.)
Tylenol works best for the "malaise" feeling you get when you are sick and it seems to reliably break fevers. For actual acute, specific pain, like a headache or joint/muscle paint I don't think it does anything.
I disagree, I get regular headaches and a paracetamol does the trick! I always wish I took it earlier 😅 it's a personal thing maybe. Or placebo
Hi! I work in pharmacy. Current studies actually suggest that acetaminophen is more effective at pain management than opioid based medications when it comes to pain management. Analgesics, the classification of medication which Tylenol (acetaminophen) belongs to, in general are far better at managing pain than most other drugs while delivering very few side effects from long term use. Analgesics and NSAIDs used in tandem with one another are also very effective (Both medications manage pain, but work on entirely different systems in the body to achieve the result and are also excreted from the body in entirely different ways).
I get a lot of joint pains and have severe back pain from trauma I suffered several years ago and I take 2 tabs of acetaminophen an 1 tablet of ibuprofen (Advil) together and that wipes out every from my body for the entirety of the day. I do NOT take this daily, nor do I suggest anyone take this daily - I tend to take them like this when the pain becomes beyond manageable.
Ultimately, the hard truth many people have to face is that no human body is made to on long term use of pain management drugs - this has been known in the industry for decades. This is why these drugs aren't meant to be taken long term - they're meant to be taken short term with other forms of treatment, such as physical therapy, on the side to develop better structures in the body to support injuries long term.
Apparently it had an effect on Tension headaches and hip joint pain from arthritis…
@@robertt9342For me it works like a miracle for tension headaches 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time it does nothing.
Acetaminophen worked much better for me than oxycodone after hemorrhoidectomy surgery. The recovery is quite painful, but I discovered that taking the maximum dose of Tylenol worked after oxycodone did not help with the pain during the first two days.
Tylenol worked for fever reliever and helped me with bladder infection. Outside of that, I only found it to be a booster to my nsaids for other pain such as migraines. I haven’t seen any mention of it being used as boosters
Whether it works for pain or not, it's a great fever reducer. When I had covid my fever just kept climbing. I took ibuprofen but it did nothing. When I hit 103 I thought I would have to go to the hospital and I did NOT want to go to the hospital but my husband ran out for Tylenol and it finally came back down. I had a fever for a full month and I tried to let the fever work but whenever it got really high the Tylenol was the only thing that brought it back down.
I've always known Tylenol doesn't work for my headaches or muscle aches at all. I literally only take it if there's nothing else.
Same. My uterus taught me about Naproxen for cramps
One very important use for it i feel was not mentioned is its amazing fever reducing abilities.
As a hangover frequenter, I can attest that it works. And its not just placebo because the headache will remove itself 20-30 min after taking it while im thinking about something else entirely
not supposed to use tylenol after heavy drinking because it increases kidney damage. supposed to use nsaids
It’s possible that the water is more important than the pill you use it to swallow.
@@ragnkja usually it’s only a sip of water, just enough to swallow them
It is used against pain like headache, not lower back pain. And there it works just fine. Also, it helps greatly against common cold symptoms.
Not migraines, for myself or my family, at least. x_x
Thank you for emphasizing that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence (even still I’m sure some won’t process it). My take on the actual subject matter, it comes down to using the right drug for the right problem. Tylenol *isn’t* an anti-inflammatory. Most pain is inflammatory. If you try to use Tylenol for inflammatory pain, you will get poor effects. If you pair it with non-inflammatory pain (or at least not primarily inflammatory pain), the effects are much more obvious. People using for the wrong thing, washes out the effect for people using it for the right things.
I frequently suffer headaches and do find that paracetamol certainly helps (quite a lot).
Back when I had constant tooth ache, its effects were ... pretty minimal.
Anecdotal evidence is the bestest evidence \o/
not for science
@@karlmuster263 I can provide evidence to the contrary. My comment was posted on a science communication YT channel, which means it counts as science and thereby your assertion is proven false!
Check and Mate! 🤡
@@karlmuster263 funnily enough, seems a good chunk of the information discussed here came from self analysis of multiple individuals... A bunch of people reporting anecdotes of their subjective experience with the drugs or lack thereof. With inconsistent small doses for completely random stuff, it kinda is just a game of average anecdotal response.
Would be nicer if the methodology was a bit more robust, like there's a reason acetaminophen is regularly paired with opiates to help affect, and I've always been resistant to painkillers but have gotten use from Tylenol consistently when needed, such as tooth pain after a crown or mild headaches. Seems to me its probably a good painkiller for the pains it is supposed to kill, and people cant really understand that 'painkiller' isnt a magic term that makes all forms of hurt go away.
Ibuprofen is best for toothache as it has good anti-inflamatory properties so it's a double whammy.
It's only ever worked on headaches for me, but for that *one* thing, it has worked better than other meds (otc or prescript) have.
.
Well, it might've also worked to reduce fevers when I was a kid, but as I was pretty young (and, obviously, ill), I can't recall.
The most important fact of Tylenol wasn't mentioned. A fever reducer. That alone saves lives.
I grew up with the adge of "Tylenol for fever and teeth, Ibuprofen for everything else"
And while it's different for others I assume, its worked out pretty well for me so far.
This was as enlightening as mud, I love it 😂
This all tracks with my experiences through life.
I always felt that ibuprofen and Alieve worked better for body aches and such than Tylenol, but since my stomach issues have gotten bad the NSAIDs really kill me.
Fortunately, most of my headaches are tension headaches so Tylenol working for that also tracks.
NSAIDs have always worked more readily for me but Tylenol is fine as long as my pain doesn't involve my lower back. I do also have (controlled, medicated) hypertension, so if I take an NSAID I take the lowest dose I can and go up as needed.
Tylenol also worked really well alternating with ibuprofen during wisdom tooth surgery recovery. I had 4 teeth out under general anaesthesia and only needed alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen every 4-6 hours. I was instructed by my surgeon to take it until I felt like I didn't need it anymore. It was close to two weeks post-surgery when I began to ease off the meds. They worked perfectly with no need for a narcotic medication.
Acetaminophen has never worked for me. When I was younger it was the only pain killer that my family would let me use. I had to put up with the pain until finally my PMS as a teenager was so bad I couldn’t walk and was crying that they finally let me use ibuprofen. I’ve tried acetaminophen a few years ago for a headache just to see what it would do and lo and behold, it didn’t do anything.
Of all the OTC painkillers, science has yet to figure out how it works.
Placebo effect.
I've had chronic pain since kindergarten. Acetaminophen does jack-squat for me. Although I've found that it can help "extend" the effects of ibuprofen when taken in spaced, regular intervals (do this only if your doctor says to do so, and only for as long as they prescribe. protect your liver). I'm at a point of my life where I take ibuprofin near-daily because of pain, and acetaminophen just doesn't cut it.
Tylenol worked for me for period pain for 20 years. Advil/Ibuprofen didn't do anything. Then I got an IUD and now it's the opposite. But for a headache or any other kind of non menstrual pain, Tylenol is still my go to and it works.