The FDA is worried that many people are overdosing on the popular painkiller.
The food and drug administration is worried that so many people are overdosing on the drug winding up with liver damage a group of government advises is conducting a safety review this week and the taking a whole new look at the warnings our gma medical contributor dr. marie savard is here to tell everybody so we’re talking about the drug used in tylenol so that
Everybody knows brand name under which they recognize it the most no question tylenol is the most common brand name of a seat immense of what they’re doing here i think we actually may be looking at taking it off the market or is this just about a different kind of warning no i think diane for those listening who take a little bit of tylenol it is a safe effective
Drug at lowers fever treats pain they’re not talking about removing it from the market but they are talking about a couple things first just reviewing combinations there’s a lot of combination medical you know out there people don’t know what they’re taking looking at the labels themselves are they going to change the warning labels alerting people to the liver
Damage which is a concern if you take too much and then finally they’re talking about maybe lowering the recommended dosage so i think that’s what’s so important let’s look at this more seriously people have until now taken the liver toxicity as seriously as perhaps they should okay everybody pay attention so let’s talk about the recommended dosage what it is during
The course of a day what it is if you also drink alcohol and what it is if you’re taking other medications they may have it in it right all right so let’s start from the beginning first of all a healthy person should take no more than 4 grams a day which is equivalent to eight extra strength tylenol which i can tell you from practice is a very popular way to do it
Too four times a day is the maximum if you drink for example more than two drinks a day you should lower it in half the total daily dose in half so you have so you’re talking about maybe no more than for extra strength tylenol in a day and then finally what they’re talking about is maybe lowering the recommended dose to somewhere around on average six a day which
Would be three grams a day but that’s the pure tylenol that’s not the company if you’re taking it and know you’re taking it so what other medications might have been that we don’t even know we’re getting an extra dose this is what i worries me a lot there’s a lot of combination products out both prescription and non-prescription over-the-counter that can fool you
It’s not clearly marked so first thing read labels carefully make sure you’re not getting a total of more than four thousand milligrams or four grams of acetaminophen a day and it will always say acetaminophen on television try to read the fine print it’s gonna be in the fine print the acetaminophen second look at the combinations that’s important look for that
Fine print and third get your prescription medicines these are just too generic this is a percocet or a generic oxycodone there’s a code on it that’ll tell you it’s acetaminophen a pap on your prescription if it says a pap that’s really code word for acetaminophen add all the doses up that’s a lot of time quickly i know you also wanted to say don’t automatically
Snouts thinking that’s safer because because the other alternatives for pain for inflammation for fever have potentially even more side effects especially in seniors aspirin ibuprofen naprosyn can cause stomach bleeding bleeding anywhere can cause high blood pressure affect kidneys so tylenol is safe if taken correctly and perhaps we need to alert people a little
Bit more and lower the recommended dose if you drink a lot don’t take any of this stuff all right heads up everybody talk to your doctor bye what you’re taking and how much you’re taking in a day thank you marine
Transcribed from video
Does Acetaminophen Cause Liver Damage? By ABC News
