Reckitt Benckiser, Auckland. What Do I Use Paracetamol for? What Is Paracetamol? How does paracetamol work? What is paracetamol used for? Paracetamol purchased over-the-counter without a prescription is commonly used to provide temporary relief of pain and discomfort associated with: Headaches e. History of paracetamol Paracetamol was invented in Pain relievers available in your supermarket or pharmacy can be divided into two groups: those that mainly act at the site of the pain and those that are thought to mainly act centrally — in the brain Paracetamol is a different type of pain reliever than nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs NSAIDs and aspirin.
Important information This article is for general information only and not intended as a substitute for medical advice. See Nurofen range. When he compared the participants after 13 weeks, it came as no surprise that one in five on ibuprofen lost the equivalent of a unit of blood through internal bleeding. What was surprising was that so, too, had the same proportion of patients who were taking paracetamol.
In , the US Food and Drugs Administration FDA even issued warnings that taking paracetamol can, in some rare instances, cause potentially fatal skin conditions called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis and acute generalised exanthematous pustulosis, which can cause the top layer of skin to become detached.
The maximum hour dose of paracetamol is 4g, but as little as 5g can cause liver complications, and it can be easy to overdose accidentally by taking more than one product containing it at the same time. Last year, the FDA reduced the maximum dose of paracetamol called acetaminophen in the US in tablets or capsules to mg to reduce the risk of accidental overdoses.
Doctors, though, were quick to criticise the new advice on the grounds that it would leave them either telling patients to simply endure their pain or lead to greater use of stronger, potentially more harmful opiate-based alternatives such as tramadol and diamorphine. In its final recommendation last year, Nice performed a U-turn, reinstating its previous backing of paracetamol , pending the outcome of a broad review of over-the-counter painkillers by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency , the results of which are due later this year.
Of course, most medicines have some side-effects, and taking them always involves balancing the possible dangers against the benefits. Perhaps the downsides of paracetamol are worth the risks? Another review of previous research published by Moore and colleagues last year found that paracetamol provided pain relief for some people with migraine and tension headaches, but was of little help for those with chronic back, cancer, post-operative, period and paediatric pain, as well as for rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.
It also highlighted evidence that those taking it regularly were almost four times more likely to have abnormal liver function test results. The real problem is that the old model of judging drugs on the basis of research that averages out their effects makes little sense when these can vary dramatically between individuals. In such cases, perhaps it makes sense for patients to take a greater role in managing their own treatment, working with medical professionals to find out what works for them.
Paracetamol has been around for over 50 years. The trouble is that the conventional view is probably wrong. Huge amounts of paracetamol are used to treat pain, measured not in how many tablets are used but in the thousands of tons. For the UK, an estimate of the amount of paracetamol sold is just under 6, tonnes a year. The evidence is that it probably does not work at all for chronic pain. Large, good and independent clinical trials and reviews from the Cochrane Library show paracetamol to be no better than placebo for chronic back pain or arthritis.
This is at the maximum daily dose in trials lasting for three months, so it has been pretty thoroughly tested. Acute pains are sudden in onset and go away after a while headache or pain after an operation, for instance.
For these, reviews from the Cochrane Library show that paracetamol can provide pain relief, but only for a small number of people. For postoperative pain, perhaps one in four people benefit; for headache perhaps one in ten. This evidence comes from systematic reviews, often of large numbers of good clinical trials. These are robust and trustworthy results. Safety boils down to examining really bad things happening to a very small number of people who take a drug.
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