What happens if you take a paracetamol at once

Introduction Paracetamol is a commonly used medicine that can help treat pain and reduce a high temperature fever. Types of paracetamol You can buy most types of paracetamol from supermarkets or pharmacies. Paracetamol is available as: tablets or caplets capsules liquid — usually for children soluble tablets tablets that dissolve in water to make a drink suppositories capsules inserted into the back passage an injection given into a vein — normally only used in hospital In some products, such as cold and flu remedies or certain combination painkillers, paracetamol is combined with other ingredients.

Who can take paracetamol Most people can take paracetamol safely, including: pregnant women breastfeeding women children over 2 months of age — lower doses are recommended for young children see How to take paracetamol below If you're not sure whether you can take paracetamol, check the leaflet that comes with it or ask your pharmacist or doctor for advice. Always get advice before taking paracetamol if you: have liver or kidney problems have problems with alcohol, such as long-term alcohol misuse.

How to take paracetamol Make sure you take paracetamol as directed on the label or leaflet, or as instructed by a health professional. For example: Adults can usually take 1 or 2 tablets mg every hours, but shouldn't take more than 4g 8 x mg tablets in the space of 24 hours.

Children under 16 need to take a lower dose, depending on their age or weight — check the packet or leaflet, or ask a pharmacist or doctor for advice. For very young children, paracetamol liquid is given using a measuring spoon or an oral syringe. Taking paracetamol with other medicines, food and alcohol Paracetamol can react unpredictably with certain other medications. It may not be safe to take paracetamol at the same time as: other products containing paracetamol — including combination products where paracetamol is one of the ingredients carbamazepine — used to treat epilepsy and some types of pain colestyramine — used to reduce itchiness caused by primary biliary cirrhosis a type of liver disease imatinib and busulfan — used to treat certain types of cancer ketoconazole — a type of antifungal medicine lixisenatide — used to treat type 2 diabetes metoclopramide — used to relieve nausea and vomiting phenobarbital, phenytoin and primidone — used to control seizures warfarin — used to prevent blood clots Check the leaflet that comes with your medicine to see if it can be taken with paracetamol.

Side effects of paracetamol Side effects from paracetamol are rare but can include: an allergic reaction , which can cause a rash and swelling flushing, low blood pressure and a fast heartbeat — this can sometimes happen when paracetamol is given in hospital into a vein in your arm blood disorders, such as thrombocytopenia low number of platelet cells and leukopenia low number of white blood cells liver and kidney damage, if you take too much overdose — this can be fatal in severe cases Speak to a pharmacist or doctor if you develop any troublesome side effects that you think could be caused by paracetamol.

Overdoses of paracetamol Taking too much paracetamol, known as an overdose, can be very dangerous. Accessing medicines self-help guide Visit our self-help guide on accessing medicines if you have difficulty getting the medicines you need.

Tweet Click here to share this page on Twitter This will open a new window. Print Click here to print this page This will open your print options in a new window. It has generally been considered cheap, safe and effective. But should we think harder before we pop another pill? Y ou have a headache after a glass of wine too many. Your back aches from another day hunched over a keyboard.

That old shoulder injury is playing up again. What do you do? There is a good chance that you will reach for the unglamorous white pills lurking in your medicine cabinet.

Paracetamol is the workhorse painkiller. GPs wrote Around m packets of it are sold annually, accounting for two-thirds of the UK market for over-the-counter painkillers. It is widely viewed as cheap, safe and effective. At around 2p per mg tablet, it certainly is cheap. But safe and effective? Even taking one or two more tablets than recommended can cause serious liver damage and possibly death.

Paracetamol overdose is one of the leading causes of liver failure. If you find you need to use paracetamol on a regular basis it is worth consulting your GP. There may be more effective treatment options available. The review was undertaken by the National Clinical Guidelines Centre, UK, and the authors report no conflict of interest.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, a British Medical Journal, on an open-access basis , so it is free to read online or download as a PDF. Such reporting takes a rather simplistic view of research that has included a highly variable mix of studies. Ideally, the studies that have contributed different risk figures would benefit from being considered on an individual basis i.

This was a systematic review of observational studies that aimed to look at the adverse effects of paracetamol. As the researchers say, paracetamol is the most widely used over-the-counter and prescription painkiller worldwide, and is often the first painkiller taken for a wide variety of conditions. However, both health professionals and patients need to have up-to-date evidence on the possible harms of a drug, and recent estimates of the possible risks of paracetamol are not currently available.

Therefore, this review aimed to address this gap. A systematic review is the best way of gathering all the available studies that have addressed the effects of a particular treatment. However, the findings of the review are always going to be inherently limited by the underlying studies.

The best way of looking at the benefits and harms of a treatment is a randomised controlled trial. However, it is not ethical to randomise a person to take, for example, a daily dose of paracetamol for a long period of time purely to look at its adverse effects.

When looking at adverse effects of a treatment in observational studies, there is always the possibility that results are being influenced by other factors, such as health differences between people who choose to take the treatment or not. The main outcomes examined were all-cause mortality, cardiovascular effects specifically heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure , gastrointestinal gut effects specifically bleeding , and kidney effects poorer kidney function as indicated by kidney filtration rate, blood chemistry or need for replacement therapy, such as dialysis.

Eight studies met the inclusion criteria, all were cohort studies. Included sample size ranged from to , participants, and duration of follow-up ranged between two and 20 years. The studies included specific populations:. The studies each looked at some of the outcomes being studied, and examined various levels of exposure compared with non-use.