Dr. Mike Bernard, Board Certified Internal Medicine Specialist, explains the proper uses of tylenol. For example: how much is safe to take, how to combine with other medications, alcohol use, and side effects.
Let’s go into tylenol what’s the generic name for top acetaminophen acetaminophen is it a common pain it’s a common pain medications used for all age groups and so so you could take it in childhood you can take an adult light what are the problems with it well tylenol cinnamon is generally safe it’s been used for years but like you were saying there is no free lunch
Any medication has good effects and potential bad effects and with tylenol the biggest effect we worry about is the liver so does it harm the liver and everybody it takes it does it have potential or do you have to take too much what worries the problem yeah the problem really is with overdosing on tylenol so chronic uses of moderate doses do not pose any problems
Unless you have some underlying liver disease like alcohol-related liver disease or cirrhosis but for the average person a modern dosage of tylenol day is is safe so when you take tylenol there are a lot of different agents that have acetaminophen also in it like accepted migraine like any type of pain medication that you have so how do you know if you take it too
Much well and that’s where a lot of the problems arise is that people think they’re taking a safe dose of acetaminophen and then they take a coughs syrup that has it in the ingredients or maybe they take a combination any histamine decongestant and it’s got to see the benefit in there so you have to look at the ingredients and so you have to add up the numbers is
There a certain amount of acetaminophen that seems to be the danger point or it depends on the person their ability to metabolize underlying liver problems what – what’s well that a safe amount has decreased in the recent years primarily because of those hidden ingredients that you find in some combination preparations so now we say the safe amount generally is
3,250 so that can be in divided doses how long does when you take acetaminophen does it last 12 hours or four hours or what it depends on which dosage you take so if you take the immediate release we say four to six hours the extender release up to 12 hours so how do you know can you do you see much problems much liver failure and people with acetaminophen no we
Don’t we see it in people who accidentally overdose or in people who unfortunately sometimes intentionally overdose but in the average person who’s taking it as director we really don’t see a whole lot of problems with it you just have to be careful when you start combining medications and you mentioned alcohol in the use with acetaminophen danger point that’s a
Danger point would not drink with acetaminophen and you know liver failure is a very bad thing to have and if you overdose on acetaminophen and certainly alcohol is a component of that it’s you know can lead to liver failure there are treatments but it’s an involved in patient type setting it’s very intensive can you tell if somebody’s in liver failure so do two
Tylenol from chronic use you really can’t you’d have to have laboratories monitored but in somebody who has chronic liver failure you’ll have classic signs swelling you know malnutrition muscle wasting jaundice jaundice yeah okay that’s a that’s a difficult difficult thing if people take just a couple of days they take too much mike they get liver very if they
Just take a whole lot over two days not to intentionally overdose but let’s say they take instead of five tablets today they take ten tablets a day for two days so if you don’t take a an extraordinary amount you’re not going to go into liver failure do the tylenol but it’s that you know instead of taking ten a day you end up taking twenty a day it’s it’s there’s
No free lunch and you’re gonna have some potential problems children you can have liquid acetaminophen the problem would be if they happen to find a bottle and drink the whole bottle yeah you’ve got to put away these you they’re very toxic in high doses so for a child if it tastes like grape or cherries and they drink the whole bottle it can be catastrophic so
It’s like everything else you have to really be careful when you’re looking at medications
Transcribed from video
Proper Uses of Tylenol (Acetaminophen) By The Dr. Bob Show
