Reality of exceeding recommended daily doses

I have cold right now and I am using Tylenol Cold Day/Night medication. They’ve come a long way in Cold medication and this is proof - for me it really works well.

But…

The dosage says 1-2 caplets every 6-8 hours. Do not exceed 8 caplets in a day.

I guess whether you take 1 or 2 caplet depends on your weight. But I find that taking 2 caplets every 6 hours leaves me just short of the relief I need. I feel the effects wear off after 4 hours… so I am wondering what would happen if I took 2 caplets every 4 hours (total of 12 caplets a day)?

Also, is mixing alcohol with these types of drugs a bad idea.

If anyone wants the medicinal ingredients they are:
Nasal Decongestant: Psuedophedrine hydrochloride
Cough Suppressant: Dextromethorphan hydrobromide
Analgesic/Antipryretic: Acetaminophen
Antihistamine: Chlorpheniramine maleate

IANAMD, but I know for a fact that ODing on Tylenol can kill you by destroying your liver. The son of a good friend of mine had a chronic back injury, and over time began to take Tylenol like TicTacs. 4 months later he was a liver transplant candidate, but a matching liver never came along, so he died.

I cannot speak to how much of an overdose begins to cause damage. Even I tend to take 3 pills oi the recommended dosage is 2, but I won’t do this for more than a day. However, this is my personal method, not backed up by any real medical knowledge whatsoever.

its hard to OD on dextromethorphan, people use that recreationally. People have gone to 1.5 grams at once, things like cold/cough usually only carry 15mg per dose.

i dont know how much acetaminophen or pseudoephedrine you need to die but i’d assume 20x the recommended dose as a guess.
combining alcohol with acetaminophen is a VERY BAD idea, the 2 can interact and destroy your liver.

http://www.anosos.com/Content/Articles/tylenol_alcohol_do_not_mix.aspx

Thanks for that informative post Wesley, appreciated.

A word of caution about Dextromethorphan. In high doses, it mimics the action of PCP, complete with hallucinations, difficulty with walking or doing complex neurological things like talking, driving, not drooling on yourself, etc. And there is some lab evidence on mouse neurons that high doses can do physical damage to the brain.

Besides, it’s a shitty high anyway.

QtM, MD

I will second that shitty high sentiment. I did this one time, and the first warning should have been: you have to take benedryl or the like, to avoid an allergic reaction to the high dose of DMX. Not good.

So then, it was kinda fun, minor hallucinations and the like, but then I COMPLETELY LOST MY ABILITY TO SEE! I mean everything was fuzzy to the point that I couldn’t see anything more than 3 feet away. It was horrible!

The chronic overuse of any drug is a very bad habit to begin. If you are much larger than the average American Male, in body mass, it might be that you are not overdosing (250 lb. or more) at all. If you are much smaller (100 lb or less) you may already be suffering from the harm that regular average doses of everything has done for you.

I think you might consider consulting a professional physician, on a private basis, to get medical advice based on real, and personally tailored understanding of your entire health picture.

Tris

Stay away from those damn amateur physicians! If they were any good, they’d turn pro!
:cool:

One thing you might ask your doctor about is staggering the doses. Instead of taking 2 caplets every six hours, take one every 3 hours.

In my experience Tylenol does not last 6 hours, and I’m not large.

It may not be all of the medicines that are wearing off, so maybe you doctor can help you determine if you can take additional doses of one component separately.

I was an intramural physician back at the ole Alma Mater. :wink:

I’ve heard that acetaminophen (the active ingredient of Tylenol) has a very low theraputic index, or ratio of overdose to typical dose. Meaning that it’s relatively easy to get too much, going just a little above what your ordinarily would take. Those recommended dosages on the package are there for a reason, and if you could take more, then that’s the number they would list instead.

As to Tylenol and alcohol, the general rule is to never mix any two drugs, unless you know otherwise. A bad effect is much more likely than a good one.

IANAMD, and you should consult a paid physician whom you can see personally with any specific questions. At the very least, there’s probably a trained professional pharmacist at the store you bought the stuff from, and you should trust him or her over us message board folks.

Do all the symptoms come back or just one or two?

Most experts say a healthy liver should not be subjected to more than 4 grams of acetaminophen (tylenol) per day. A significant minority of more cautious experts say 2 grams a day is the max dose that they recommend. If you already have liver disease, consult your doctor about whether you should be taking any acetaminophen at all.

QtM, MD

Each caplet contains 325 mg of acetaminophen; 12 per day, then, is 3.9 grams. That’s running pretty close to the edge, pardner.

I was taking the extra strength 500 mg tablets.

I was reading the article Wesley Clark quoted and alcohol mixing lowers the amount of acetominophen you can stand in a day. Since alcohol can stay in your liver for 4 days IIRC then the wine I had the day before I got sick (and pretty much every night before it) is still in there and I should consider myself one of the people who should reduce the dosage.

Very, very interesting, I don’t think the general public (including me) considered acetominophen a dangerous drug.

I wonder why no drug manufacturer has tried to replace the acetominophen with something less liver-toxic… maybe ibuprofin?

Replace acetaminophen? It’s a godsend for people who can’t tolerate NSAIDS like aspirin, ibuprophen, etc. I don’t want it replaced in my practice!

Pharmaceutical companies already do make stuff like vicoprofen (vicodin with ibuprofen), and many combo drugs do use ibuprofen instead of acetaminphen. But while overdosing on it are one of the chief causes of liver failure, it remains a very, very useful drug when used appropriately, which 99.99+% of people do.

QtM, MD