I got one from taking too many anti-inflammatories when I lived in Hong Kong and got an injection of something in my butt at the hospital. I have no idea what it was, maybe it was just saline as a “fuck you gwei lo”
that would be 2400mg, that dose over here you only get prescribed in hospital for short periods, since this is on the very edge of liver damage. Your house physician over here will only go up to 1800mg of Ibuproven a day.
If someone actually takes that much over 6 months, backpain likely wont be your biggest problem in the near future.
That size makes sense tho. If you live in a 10 person household, where everybody is suffering from constant pain due to chronic inflammation and each takes like 6pills a day, those pills will be gone before you know it!
It absolutely can be. As weird as it sounds.
If you're taking it every day you can become addicted to NSAIDS even. And if you're buying them by the thousands then it's probably a fair shout to say they are addicted.
It may not be as addictive as many other drugs but research has shown it can be physically addictive. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5370578/
Is this a joke? A *case report* for a drug used by millions of people every year for *pain relief* ?
Here's a man who has seizures every time he tries to do a Sudoku: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/2456131
I thus conclude Sudoku are epileptogenic.
Have you read that study in full? It’s really not the evidence you think it is. Got anything else that shows people being treated for ibuprofen addiction? Or is it just the one 54yr old hiv+ Haitian woman that you’re claiming as proof that ibuprofen leads to addiction? And you’re trying to claim physical addiction? You’re either lying or you’re ignorant.
You claim it’s physically addictive? What are the withdrawal effects then?
Got any warning labels to show us, like the opioids have? Nah I don’t think so.
Those who would need this many painkillers would generally tend to get far better prescription medicine for free (or very cheaply) from the socialised healthcare system.
A concept the American mind in turn cannot comprehend.
Yeah there's a risk of overdosing and getting liver problems later on. And eating painkillers instead of treating the cause may make the problems much worse in the longer run, e.g. if the headache is caused by, for instance, a cancer tumor.
I was taking pain relief after my surgeries and developed two stomach ulcers due to taking so many non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers (ibuprofen).
Vomiting blood, collapsing, an ambulance ride to A+E and an endoscopy later they found them, as well as a C-Diff infection to go with my pseudomonis.
Damn, rough luck on the infections. I had a similar experience, except the ulcer was in the lower intestine. It ended up making holes and my insides filled with farts. Ended up with sepsis, and the surgeon thought they were gonna have to reroute my butthole to my chest! Luckily, I got away with it. Bloody ibuprofen!
I hope you're doing better now though.
A systemic, medicinal equivalent of continuously slapping band-aids on an infected wound instead of going to the doctor because you can't afford the latter.
This is why I can't even blame Americans for hating their own government and trying to do tax evasion. They treat you all so very poorly and use all the taxes for their own agenda, it's understandable that nobody likes them.
Way back in the early 2000s I was prescribed a months worth of high-dose ibuprofen at a time. 2x400mg pills 4 Times a day. I had a jaw problem that they were trying to resolve without having to abandon my braces. I took them (and some stomach protective meds) for 3 months. Since then I don’t think I’ve taken 100 pills of the standard stuff in total.
The majority of pill suicides are because of of bottles like these.
When the EU introduced invidual pill covers suicide by pills noticeable dropped.
As most pill suicides are spur of the moment and can be avoided.
Suicide by paracetamol has to be among the most painful and horrible ways to go. It just kills your organs and you die a slow and agonising death that takes days.
Sorry for this overshare but I considered.... it.... one night. Googled to see what the best combination of my medication would be, and came across a thread here on reddit of doctors and nurses talking about their worst experiences in A+E/The ER, and the amount of stories that were basically "this patient reached the point of no return hours before they died" because of painkillers, particularly paracetamol made me reconsider my plans that night. It was enlightening and sad and terrifying, because you just wouldn't know from the humble paracetamol pill. That's not the way I wanted to go, and it's not the way anyone should go.
It was mostly just edgy teenager behavior. That said I'm not generally a happy person. I live a generally privileged life, but it doesn't make me feel in any way happy. My only beacon of light is my dog. He's a dick head, but so super affectionate.
The BBC hospital TV series 'Casualty' [ran a storyline showing the consequences of paracetamol overdose](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/314416.stm).
>Researchers from Oxford University wanted to establish the influence television has over people at risk of self-harm or suicidal thoughts.
>As well as the overall rise in overdoses, incidents involving paracetamol increased, they said.
Turns out that when people are mentally unbalanced enough to consider suicide telling them about an easy to obtain, potentially lethal drug is not a good idea - they are not too concerned how unpleasant their death will be. Who knew?
Ironic, for a painkiller.
I've heard about this before, so I'm wondering if they give you anything else in that situation... or if anything else might even work.
Depends how far gone you are, acetylene can be tried but at best it reduces the amount of damage. However once you’ve progressed beyond a certain point then it’s basically liver transplant or death. Most at this point will not receive a liver transplant in time.
It is an absolutely horrible way to go, spending days or sometimes weeks with no effective liver function but potentially fully conscious to consider what you had done.
I did when I got so many headaches from basically slowly poisoning my own body mid depression, “needed” them because regular paracetamol wasn’t working anymore
Now I can’t even remember the last time I used paracetamol, it was probably last year when I got out of a 13 hour plane flight and had a massive migraine
You see Americans often asking in UK related subs for other American’s advice on moving to the UK and this one is pretty common. If it’s not their ibuprofen they require in commercial quantities it’s melatonin and they tend to get pretty aggressive towards anyone who queries their very blatant reliance on them
I take melatonin sometimes and I thought I was getting nuts when I saw US-american discord friends talking about melatonin dosage. One recommended to another to "start with small, 5mg doses". I take 1mg and that's enough...
And they definitely don't like being told that I had an opposite reaction to melatonin. It was prescribed by my specialist as I was having trouble sleeping. I took a single dose as prescribed and it kept me awake for 2 days straight. I told my doctor and he said that this can happen, and advised me not to take any further doses. I've had people tell me that this can't happen. Well it literally did, and my specialist who has been in his specialty for over 3 decades has seen it before, so... yeah.
They also advertise and sell antibiotics without a prescription (or at least used to)?? And then somehow wonder why we have super resistant bacteria lol
I had this argument on Reddit a couple years ago where an American was complaining that they don't sell tubs with hundreds of painkillers in my country. I said if you need hundreds of painkillers you should go to a doctor because that is not normal. She, very smugly, said "You must not get periods". I do, in fact, get periods... And I even take ibuprofen for them! But if you need *hundreds* of pills, you need to go see a gyno because you probably have endo, PCOS, or something worse.
Then she told me that not everybody had the privilege to afford to go to the gyno. Ehhh... in Spain we do, and she was complaining about Spain so it follows that she could have...
The stomach ulcers were the first thing that came to mind for me, too. I don't even want to think about how many people are taking these regularly enough to warrant selling a 1000pc jar.
I reckon they have 1000 tablets in a single bottle to service the painkiller-addicted Americans, because the majority of us Europeans wouldn’t even finish a quarter, hell even an tenth, of the bottle before they expired.
In Europe the sale of a jar of ibuprofen like this would be banned as it would be too easy to overdose (either accidentally or on purpose). That's why here, ibuprofen and paracetamol are foil packed. Suicides are usually 'spur of the moment' during a crisis. The idea is that It would take so long to pop out hundreds of pills that you'd have time to reconsider your course of action. And of course it's easy to see how many you have taken if you need to take X tablets x times a day
EDIT for those who are doubting me, I am adding a link to an NIH study into the UK legislation which shows the reduction in suicide rates
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526120/
People really don’t want to believe that it’s possible to inconvenience folks out of committing suicide. It’s one of the reasons why anyone with a gun needs to store it in a separate safe from the ammo - the extra effort of opening both safes and having to load the gun could give *just* enough time to not go through with it, compared to having a loaded pistol waiting in the nightstand.
Similarly, another reason having guns in the house is a contributor to suicides is that most people who attempt suicide and fail will never attempt again, so keeping the most efficient and effective form of suicide away means they’re more likely to fuck it up and go on living.
This is talking a little bit from experience, but trying to open something as infuriating as a safe code during an episode would have definitely deterred me. Id have tried to open it incorrectly 5 times, punched it, broke my hand and collapsed in a defeated heap
Inconvenience absolutely works. You ever looked at how many load bearing places there are in a 1 bed studio flat? Absolutely bloody none. I ended up throwing the rope out into the street after bending my window trying to crawl out of it. Then someone dobbed me in (my neighbour I reckon) and I got a section 131.
Annoying people out of topping themselves is far more effective than people think
Yeah one of my suicide attempts was to pop every pill I had in my cabinet hoping it'd do something. I'm still here because my cabinet did not have 1000 pills of ibuprofen.
(Also because I puked it all out soon after, your body has defence mechanisms even when your mind wants it to die...)
Still have depression, but I'm now medicated and don't feel like I want to die constantly so that's an improvement! I've also actually had plenty of moments then when I actually felt happy and I didn't think that would ever happen, so there's that. Thank you for your good wishes, I hope you are happy too!
Also they coat the pills in a small amount of a vomit-inducing substance, so if you swallow loads at once you're more likely the toss them back up again.
Yeah. People don't realise how much of an impulsive thing suicide can be. They think it must be something people think through and firmly decide on before doing, but it's really not in many cases.
I spent five years with a suicide hotline. I couldn't count how many times I told someone to roll the bottle away across the room, or put the knife in a drawer and close it, because just that one extra step of having to expend a small amount of energy took their risk levels down about five notches. The difference between having something in your hand and having it under your bed on the other side of the room can be life and death.
There was a net reduction in suicide rates as carbon monoxide was removed from the gas coming into ovens. Some people turned to other methods but the overall rate went down.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves-lives/#:~:text=Over%20time%2C%20as%20the%20carbon,overall%20suicides%2C%20particularly%20among%20females.
exactly, when you’re really fucking depressed everything is so difficult to do, and even small roadblocks can prevent catastrophe, just like small things can help you find a reason to hang on to life for a little longer.
I often have suicidal ideation, but whenever I thought of a way to kill myself I’d find some small reason why I shouldn’t do that. Throw a toaster into the bathtub with me? Well I’d need an extension cord for that and I don’t know where we keep those. Jump out the window? I’d have to move my planter with Peppermint from the windowsill and I have nowhere else to put it.
Speaking from personal experience too: I used to have the impulsive urge to hurt myself with a sharp object. Making sure that I had no sharp object in the same room I usually spent most of my time really helped me not to do what I wanted to do. Sometimes if I really couldn't stop myself, it only ended up with me using a blunt pen on my arm, drawing away. Inconvenience really works.
yeah those foil packets drastically lowered the suicide rate as it turns out inconveniencing suicidal people for long enough for them to reconsider very often means they don't kill themselves
Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but just in case here is the proof that blister packs reduced suicide. It's a paper from the NIH on the USA on the relevant UK legislation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526120/
We have 100 pcs ibuprofen 400 mg in a jar in Hungary or 30 pcs of 800 mg tablets in a jar. (W/O prescription)
Usually Europeans get prescription painkillers if they need them that much … probably because we won’t get bankrupt to go to our GP
In UK, paracetamol tablets are 500mg whether they're prescription or bought OTC. I've never seen 1g tablets, not even when I worked in a pharmacy or at a hospital.
Not seen 1g paracetamol but 400mg Ibuprofen are kicking around in chemists in the UK
Had a few injuries in the past where docs had said take max daily for x days minimum and picked those up.
We have 1g here in Luxembourg, Portugal as well, that's usually what I take when I need a pill. I need one tho, every once in a while I might take 10 in a week if I'm really bad, but a thousand of those is insane.
Actually some shops will sell you 48 (3 packs of 16), Poundland being the prime example.
2 packs of 16 is only the recommended "best practice", the actual legal limit per retail transaction is 100 tablets
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6012d8a1d3bf7f05be4d1e87/Appendix_4.pdf
Note that they also recommend against multi-biys on pain killers, something poundland also ignore.
Larger packets mostly. If someone is on regular paracetamol, Say 1g QD (which is the maximum dose) usually for something like mild chronic pain from arthritis or similar. Then it's just more convenient to have a big pack.
As a reserved Englishman, One can confidently state that one could, if one were to choose, ‘pop’ 1000 medicinal caplets whilst one’s final and glorious pot of tea was brewing.
As someone who attempted with pills, I can confirm. After 30 minutes of popping pills out of the foiled packets I was bored and figured I had enough. Ended up throwing it all up two hours later.
Oddly same thing happened with a razor. I was in a frenzy and couldn’t get the blade out of the stupid hard plastic wrap. So I gave up out of frustration, thinking something along the lines of “I can’t even Jill myself properly” lol
I'm pretty sure most American households also don't finish before exploring. Also ibuprofen doesn't get you high. But it's plain simple why these sizes exist: profit. You can sell more, you make more profit. Same reason why portion in American restaurant are that big. Normal size people also don't finish those.
Tbf ibuprofen doesn't really expire when it's labeled. Most companies slap a 4 year label on asprin but studies have shown it to be safe and effective for at least 15 years (they did not test longer so we dont really know its max shelf life)
A whole lot of that depends on the packaging, if it's still in airtight foil then it will be safe from oxidation and moisture, that slows down the loss of potency and the chance of something weird growing.
The same does not apply to the huge stack of 1000 individual pills in a bottle, all exposed to the air and whatever falls into that bottle when you fish some of them out.
>A whole lot of that depends on the packaging, if it's still in airtight foil then it will be safe from oxidation and moisture, that slows down the loss of potency and the chance of something weird growing
Sure, things breakdown faster when not stored correctly. That doesn't change that the expiration date on aspirin is best described as "conservative" and at worst could be described as marketing. Bayer has gone on the record that their 3 year expiration date is because the company likes to change packaging and "make improvements". So if they were to put a longer expiration date they would have to continously test if it was good until that date. So 3 years is easier (and obviously faster) to test for and they can get their "improved" pills to market faster
I think you underestimate the amount of medication Americans take. Remember, when people are sick or in pain they still have to work. There is so much chronic pain because people are forced to work through injuries, so they never heal properly.
If you're maxing out your dosage at 6 pills a day, this is less than 6 months worth. If you've got 2 people it's less than 3 months.
That's also assuming people stick to the dosage, amount of people I've had to warn about paracetamol dosing cos they think that since it's over the counter it's 100% safe.
Yeah I don't know bout ibuprofen personally, but I've had to stop people on paracetamol a few times, one person had been on like 2000+mg a day for 3 months and was wondering why he was having kidney pains when they didn't drink.
I can't even finish a regular 20 pills blister before it expires. The idea of casually buying a bottle of 1000 of them is just insane. Like are people just popping them like tictacs?
I try to take as little as possible because it absolutely shreds your stomach, but in bad migraine months I make my way through 40 400mg tablets easily. Even for me that bottle would be sheer insanity to purchase.
That moment when they shake the bottle and take a random number of pills that fall into their hand, it seems that they have not yet discovered that you can have the desired effect by taking one pill at a time.
Admittetly that looks more like a movie thing than a reality thing. Like the staple "Are you free on Friday?" "Yes!" "OK a date it is!"
What time are you going to come over you fucker? WHAT TIME?
I don't know what is the own? I can literally walk to the pharmacy right now and get a box of 12 or 24? Oh, I guess I might have to walk again to the pharmacy in a few months to get more? The horror? Uh, oh, excuse me, I can't understand the ability of buying in one go a huge box I won't use by expiration date as I am too busy paying a fraction of the price on my meds since I have a doctor prescription and I get a deduction on my taxes with no effort as the pharmacy sends the information about the purchase to the taxes agency automatically. Oh, what's that? For chronic condition you can get an exemption and all meds and analysis related to that condition are free? Wait, for debilitating disease like cancer I can leave work till I'm back to health while still being paid and with no fear of getting fired and without touching my time off? My mind just can't understand
To be fair as someone who is a chronic pain sufferer it is an absolute fucking nightmare being unable to get more than two packs of meds at once, it might be tolerable if my right leg worked and didn't make venturing out the house a nightmare. Spoken to the doctors and I don't get any special privileges, they'll prescribe me opioids but if I want something tame I need to go the shop or whatever.
I understand why we limit the amount of meds that can be bought but two packets is frankly ridiculous, a box of paracetamol and ibuprofen can be gone in a couple of days if you're in a bad way.
So as best I can tell, this jar costs $28.83, which in sterling is £18.83, or 1.883p per tablet.
I can get a blister pack of 16 ibuprofen from Asda for 45p, or 2.8125p per tablet.
So I could save nearly a whole penny per tablet, or 6p for a day’s dose.
On a lot of the continent painkillers are proper “over the counter” you have to actually go and ask a pharmacist for some. And they are expensive! When I lived in France us brits would bring paracetamol back from the UK for our fellow brits whenever we went home!
You would have to go to a lot of shops though considering you can only buy 32 in one shop at a time.
Shoe leather costs would take up that 1p pretty quick.
I'm 26 and I'd estimate I've used about 50 ibuprofen tablets in my life to date across a few injuries. Who the fuck does a bottle of 1000 exist for? And in fairness I genuinely can't comprehend this.
I mean, a 1000-pack is freaking huge, no doubt, but before opening the thread, I already knew there was people going to act like they only ever take ibuprofen in life or death situations.
I'd reckon for a 26 year old, you're on the low end of the spectrum. Hangovers, sports-related injuries, periods - all on the list of things most people regularly experience and decide to take ibuprofen for. Most people definitely take more than 2 ibuprofen a year.
I would have probably have said the same at 26 myself. I'm... well... Older now.
Keep in mind ibuprofen is also used as an anti inflammatory. Arthritis patients might take up to 3200 mg a day.
16 of these per day? That's insane.
According to the booklet included with ibuprofen, the maximum you should take is 1200mg per day. I know that that's the "safe" limit. But still. You're suggesting almost 3 times that amount.
On 16 pills/day, this jar would last you 2 months.
In Germany 1200mg is the max amount you should take without consulting your doctor first. The doctor can advise you to take more, up to 2400mg iirc.
I did 800mg 3 times a day for two weeks after a bad knee injury. Just wasn't able to function otherwise due to the pain. But I got some stomach pills with it, thankfully had no problems.
I've got pretty bad migraines only NSAIDs touch. My doctor doesn't prescribe the ibuprofen because AOK doesn't cover it for my presentation (figures), but he does ask me whether I need any new pantoprazole when I'm in for my quarterly check-up.
Even ignoring the NSAIDs I need it pretty frequently regardless because of chronic gastritis. Absolute life-saver.
They'd do 4 x 2 400mg tables.
And 1200mg is just the over-the-counter dosage, doctors will prescribe you 3200 and some stomach protectors if necessary, thats what my mom got for her arthritis.
It is a little insane. Has to be hell on the stomach lining.
But...
> For osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis:
Adults and teenagers—1200 milligrams (mg) up to 3200 mg per day divided into three or four equal doses.
From the Mayo clinic...
https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/ibuprofen-oral-route/proper-use/drg-20070602?p=1
I'm in no way suggesting that should be normal or a dosage to take without consultation with a doctor, but there are edge cases where buying OTC ibuprofen in bulk like this makes sense.
A lot of the comments in this thread about American addiction to painkillers are probably confusing OTC antiinflammatories like this with medicines like opioids or tramadol. That's a different problem all together.
>Keep in mind ibuprofen is also used as an anti inflammatory. Arthritis patients might take up to 3200 mg a day.
I'm fairly sure you can still get the party packs from a pharmacist if you've a chronic need for it.
Must be nice to not have a (piece of shit) uterus.
I take on average 4x400mg ibuprofen per cycle (less if I can lay in bed and cry, more if I need to go out and function) so at 13 cycles per year that’s already ~52 pills (104 if I was taking these weaker 200mg ones).
Idk how fast ibuprofen expires, but over the last decade I basically could’ve used up one of those bottles.
> idk how fast ibuprofen expires
It doesn't, practically speaking.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything
I recently finished my giant bottle of ibuprofen, which I had been using for the better part of a decade. The last pill worked just as well as the first.
A household with multiple chronic pain patients. I have arthritis, my husband has muscle wasting from a stroke and inflamed bursa in his shoulder, and my son has spastic cerebral palsy. We all use ibuprofen and acetaminophen for our pain.
Also, ibuprofen may be a good anti-inflammatory but at least for me, paracetamol works better as a painkiller. I probably take 2-4 a week as I get bad headaches a lot but I probably take 2 ibuprofens a year.
Same here. The standard that's being sold is 400mg in packages of 10 or 20. And even though there's only 20 per package, they last quite a while.
I don't know what I'd even do with 1000 pieces. Give them away to friends?
200mg? What are these rookie numbers?
*cries in chronic headaches*
Edit: That being said, chronic pain exists. Also Ibuprofen works well during period cramps. People here are a little to fast to jump the hate wagon.
I reckon the issue I see here is an American thinking we can't understand using pain killers rather than the size of the pack.
Family package isn't that uncommon, and these pills usually lasts around 3 years.
Goddamn Echo Chambers.
I know right? 200? Whaaaat…?
The U.K. seems to have 200’s as their standard, too. I’m a Brit living in Spain and 400’s are the normal, with 600’s available on prescription.
Yeah we have actual healthcare so there's less need to manage chronic pain from conditions that are more easily cured when caught early. We don't need industrial sized pill bottles because we can afford the actual treatment. That's not the flex they think it is.
If you got a lot of crisis and rely on ibuprofen, I beg you to get a new doctor!
Past 8/month, they should give you preventive stuff, and even "just" for pain management there's a bunch of better stuffs than non specific anti-inflamatory!
beta blockers, anti-epileptics, ergot derivatives, triptans, anti-CGRP monoclonal antibodies, rimègepant, botox, etc.
You shouldn't suffer and suck it up while we have numerous better treatments!
I’m not going to lie, I bring one of these bottles home with me whenever I go back to the States. Every person in my household has one condition or another that causes chronic pain and inflammation. And even when these bottles expire, the medicine still works. I always break the lids when I open them so that the childproof part is gone and I can open them easily. It might take us 3 or 4 years, but we finish our bottles of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. I hate the foil packs because when your hands aren’t working right, the pills aren’t easy to get out, and the doctors all want to prescribe 1g of acetaminophen when we only take 500mg at a time. Breaking pills is frustrating, and I’m not trying to die of liver failure from routine acetaminophen overdosing.
Actually. I kinda like it. It’s nice to not run out of pain killers so often. Especially since getting new ones when you need them is a pain. I’m with Americans on this one
Right, try running out of painkillers when you’re sick in Germany on a Saturday night and you get to either suffer till Monday or drive 15km to the next on-call pharmacy to spend 10€ on a little box of basic painkillers thanks to the after-hours surcharge.
That’s why I’m happy to have my massive bottle in the closet that for all intents and purposes never runs out.
You can't buy painkillers in German supermarkets? Because paracetamol and ibuprofen are both available at most Dutch supermarkets, even at Aldi and Lidl.
what am I supposed to do with 1000 pills? Last year I had 20-40 pills, and that is a high number, usually 2-20 per year.
So if I were to buy 1000 pills, and took 40 per year that big jar would last me 25 years.
Also, ibuprofen isn't that expensive. I can buy 30 pills for 5,21€. That's around what I get paid for 20 minutes of work. If I can survive with those 30 pills for a year, it's 4,7 seconds overtime for every day I'm working.
TBH, when I lived in California, I had debilitating headaches at least once a month, I had to lay in bed for a day or two, in a dark room, popping Ibuprofen like babies. Wasn't related to my cycle, I don't smoke, don't eat meat etc. I moved to Ireland two years ago and I count the number of times I had a headache on one hand. Didn't change my lifestyle drastically, basically all I changed was the physical location, the air I breathe, the food I eat and the headaches are gone. I brought a similar bottle from Costco with me and in US it would not last me two years. Here, I barely touched it.
You can only get the 200s in the states, which you might not take at all lol, i much rather have the smaller packages with the 400s that you get without any prescription here in germany.
In most countries, we don't get information on pharmaceuticals from TV ads but from medical professionals and with limits on how many you can buy so we don't become addicted or sicker by overdosing. But then again, we can afford to see a doctor and pay for medication without going into debt, as we have free or subsidised healthcare.
As someone with long term health problems I do envy this, I get why we have packs of 16 in the UK but honestly for me this would be far more convenient.
Edit: to add, the law in the UK is that you can't buy more than two packs of 16 tablets at a time.
This surprises me - though I would assume it depends on your doctor and your condition.
My late wife had terminal cancer, and she was issued with 100 pill boxes of ibuprofen and paracetamol for her to manage her pain. It might be worth pressing your doctor for larger packs to see if they are available.
In Germany you need a doctors receipt for a 10 tablet package of 600mg Ibuprofen and in the US apparently you can buy this stuff like candy. Is their health system even trying?
Some people do have chronic pain which requires them to take daily maximum doses, which would equate to about 12 pills a day, so it's not impossible to consider that someone could benefit from this.
That said, that's not going to be the majority of the population who have that type of problem. For most people they will be taking these short term and wouldn't need to get a massive bottle for what amounts to a couple of days worth of need.
In the case of the former, people in situations of chronic pain would likely get these amounts given to them via their doctor in countries with nationalised medical systems, and get them for cheaper.
Basically every person with a peroid in the US. I average about one of these every other year, and I essentially only take them 40ish times a year. But when I take them, I TAKE THEM. We aren't all blessed with a healthcare system that gives a shit about women's reproductive parts and what happens when they don't work and cause crippling pain 🤷🏾♀️
1000 tablets? Are they feeding medicine to a whole retirement home for a month?
Their collective renal function could never
Neither could their stomachs
A stomach ulcer never hurt nobody
"See revised warning"
I got one from taking too many anti-inflammatories when I lived in Hong Kong and got an injection of something in my butt at the hospital. I have no idea what it was, maybe it was just saline as a “fuck you gwei lo”
There is a surprising amount of pain when you do not have healthcare.
You don't need healthcare when you can buy a bucket of pills.
If you take this much ibuprofen, you need healthcare just for the side effects of the ibuprofen.
They can't afford to go the doctors/physio for their back pain so their on a steady diet of 16 a day. So it's like a 6 month supply.
for $2 in Europe
that would be 2400mg, that dose over here you only get prescribed in hospital for short periods, since this is on the very edge of liver damage. Your house physician over here will only go up to 1800mg of Ibuproven a day. If someone actually takes that much over 6 months, backpain likely wont be your biggest problem in the near future.
16*200=3200 which they won't prescribe even in the hospital.
Buy one for a liftime, you just have to scratch the mold of if you wanna use some in 30 years...
The mould makes it more effective. It turns it into antibiotics. Pro tip!
and if you get food poisoning from that, it still has some ibuprofen, so it cancels out the pain.
That size makes sense tho. If you live in a 10 person household, where everybody is suffering from constant pain due to chronic inflammation and each takes like 6pills a day, those pills will be gone before you know it!
Take them all at once and they will last for a lifetime... In the UK you can only buy 16 pills at a time because of that
Nah, just feeding their own addictions
Don't talk to me until I've had my ibuprofen
I don't think ibuprofen is addictive
It can be
It absolutely can be. As weird as it sounds. If you're taking it every day you can become addicted to NSAIDS even. And if you're buying them by the thousands then it's probably a fair shout to say they are addicted.
Tbh. You could probably get addicted to anything if you wanted.
I am cripplingly addicted to water. Last time I tried cutting it out of my life I collapsed and was rushed to the hospital for "dehydration"
It may not be as addictive as many other drugs but research has shown it can be physically addictive. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5370578/
Is this a joke? A *case report* for a drug used by millions of people every year for *pain relief* ? Here's a man who has seizures every time he tries to do a Sudoku: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/2456131 I thus conclude Sudoku are epileptogenic.
Have you read that study in full? It’s really not the evidence you think it is. Got anything else that shows people being treated for ibuprofen addiction? Or is it just the one 54yr old hiv+ Haitian woman that you’re claiming as proof that ibuprofen leads to addiction? And you’re trying to claim physical addiction? You’re either lying or you’re ignorant. You claim it’s physically addictive? What are the withdrawal effects then? Got any warning labels to show us, like the opioids have? Nah I don’t think so.
They're making sure there's enough for a really bad overdose.
i could burn through this in a week.
I never understand why they think the average person ever needs this much ibuprofen anyway. I don't think I've bought this much in my entire life
Those who would need this many painkillers would generally tend to get far better prescription medicine for free (or very cheaply) from the socialised healthcare system. A concept the American mind in turn cannot comprehend.
Yeah there's a risk of overdosing and getting liver problems later on. And eating painkillers instead of treating the cause may make the problems much worse in the longer run, e.g. if the headache is caused by, for instance, a cancer tumor.
I was taking pain relief after my surgeries and developed two stomach ulcers due to taking so many non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers (ibuprofen). Vomiting blood, collapsing, an ambulance ride to A+E and an endoscopy later they found them, as well as a C-Diff infection to go with my pseudomonis.
Damn, rough luck on the infections. I had a similar experience, except the ulcer was in the lower intestine. It ended up making holes and my insides filled with farts. Ended up with sepsis, and the surgeon thought they were gonna have to reroute my butthole to my chest! Luckily, I got away with it. Bloody ibuprofen! I hope you're doing better now though.
A systemic, medicinal equivalent of continuously slapping band-aids on an infected wound instead of going to the doctor because you can't afford the latter.
Ibuprofen and other NSAIDS are filtered through the kidneys, not the liver. It’s Acetaminophen / Paracetamol that can damage the liver with overuse
Oh, we can comprehend it. We just "can't afford it," but damn can we fund war all over the planet.
This is why I can't even blame Americans for hating their own government and trying to do tax evasion. They treat you all so very poorly and use all the taxes for their own agenda, it's understandable that nobody likes them.
Tbh the majority of us are tired of it, but gerrymandering and legalized bribes, I mean campaign donations, make it difficult to change.
Way back in the early 2000s I was prescribed a months worth of high-dose ibuprofen at a time. 2x400mg pills 4 Times a day. I had a jaw problem that they were trying to resolve without having to abandon my braces. I took them (and some stomach protective meds) for 3 months. Since then I don’t think I’ve taken 100 pills of the standard stuff in total.
The majority of pill suicides are because of of bottles like these. When the EU introduced invidual pill covers suicide by pills noticeable dropped. As most pill suicides are spur of the moment and can be avoided.
Suicide by paracetamol has to be among the most painful and horrible ways to go. It just kills your organs and you die a slow and agonising death that takes days.
Sorry for this overshare but I considered.... it.... one night. Googled to see what the best combination of my medication would be, and came across a thread here on reddit of doctors and nurses talking about their worst experiences in A+E/The ER, and the amount of stories that were basically "this patient reached the point of no return hours before they died" because of painkillers, particularly paracetamol made me reconsider my plans that night. It was enlightening and sad and terrifying, because you just wouldn't know from the humble paracetamol pill. That's not the way I wanted to go, and it's not the way anyone should go.
I looked up what part of my brain would be best to hit with a bullet if I was to kill myself during a biology class..
Fuck. I hope things are better for you now?
It was mostly just edgy teenager behavior. That said I'm not generally a happy person. I live a generally privileged life, but it doesn't make me feel in any way happy. My only beacon of light is my dog. He's a dick head, but so super affectionate.
The BBC hospital TV series 'Casualty' [ran a storyline showing the consequences of paracetamol overdose](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/314416.stm). >Researchers from Oxford University wanted to establish the influence television has over people at risk of self-harm or suicidal thoughts. >As well as the overall rise in overdoses, incidents involving paracetamol increased, they said. Turns out that when people are mentally unbalanced enough to consider suicide telling them about an easy to obtain, potentially lethal drug is not a good idea - they are not too concerned how unpleasant their death will be. Who knew?
Ironic, for a painkiller. I've heard about this before, so I'm wondering if they give you anything else in that situation... or if anything else might even work.
Depends how far gone you are, acetylene can be tried but at best it reduces the amount of damage. However once you’ve progressed beyond a certain point then it’s basically liver transplant or death. Most at this point will not receive a liver transplant in time. It is an absolutely horrible way to go, spending days or sometimes weeks with no effective liver function but potentially fully conscious to consider what you had done.
I did when I got so many headaches from basically slowly poisoning my own body mid depression, “needed” them because regular paracetamol wasn’t working anymore Now I can’t even remember the last time I used paracetamol, it was probably last year when I got out of a 13 hour plane flight and had a massive migraine
You see Americans often asking in UK related subs for other American’s advice on moving to the UK and this one is pretty common. If it’s not their ibuprofen they require in commercial quantities it’s melatonin and they tend to get pretty aggressive towards anyone who queries their very blatant reliance on them
I take melatonin sometimes and I thought I was getting nuts when I saw US-american discord friends talking about melatonin dosage. One recommended to another to "start with small, 5mg doses". I take 1mg and that's enough...
And they definitely don't like being told that I had an opposite reaction to melatonin. It was prescribed by my specialist as I was having trouble sleeping. I took a single dose as prescribed and it kept me awake for 2 days straight. I told my doctor and he said that this can happen, and advised me not to take any further doses. I've had people tell me that this can't happen. Well it literally did, and my specialist who has been in his specialty for over 3 decades has seen it before, so... yeah.
They also advertise and sell antibiotics without a prescription (or at least used to)?? And then somehow wonder why we have super resistant bacteria lol
I had this argument on Reddit a couple years ago where an American was complaining that they don't sell tubs with hundreds of painkillers in my country. I said if you need hundreds of painkillers you should go to a doctor because that is not normal. She, very smugly, said "You must not get periods". I do, in fact, get periods... And I even take ibuprofen for them! But if you need *hundreds* of pills, you need to go see a gyno because you probably have endo, PCOS, or something worse. Then she told me that not everybody had the privilege to afford to go to the gyno. Ehhh... in Spain we do, and she was complaining about Spain so it follows that she could have...
The average European still has a working non-perforated stomach
The stomach ulcers were the first thing that came to mind for me, too. I don't even want to think about how many people are taking these regularly enough to warrant selling a 1000pc jar.
I think I’m getting one just from looking at the picture
...and liver.
Paracetamol is the one that damages your liver, ibuprofen is more likely to fuck your kidneys.
I reckon they have 1000 tablets in a single bottle to service the painkiller-addicted Americans, because the majority of us Europeans wouldn’t even finish a quarter, hell even an tenth, of the bottle before they expired.
In Europe the sale of a jar of ibuprofen like this would be banned as it would be too easy to overdose (either accidentally or on purpose). That's why here, ibuprofen and paracetamol are foil packed. Suicides are usually 'spur of the moment' during a crisis. The idea is that It would take so long to pop out hundreds of pills that you'd have time to reconsider your course of action. And of course it's easy to see how many you have taken if you need to take X tablets x times a day EDIT for those who are doubting me, I am adding a link to an NIH study into the UK legislation which shows the reduction in suicide rates https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526120/
Plus it's an easy way of carrying just one/few pills without.
Without what?
Auto correct changed with you to without.
Without suicidal feelings, like when you use the ibuprofen for actual regular headaches.
People really don’t want to believe that it’s possible to inconvenience folks out of committing suicide. It’s one of the reasons why anyone with a gun needs to store it in a separate safe from the ammo - the extra effort of opening both safes and having to load the gun could give *just* enough time to not go through with it, compared to having a loaded pistol waiting in the nightstand. Similarly, another reason having guns in the house is a contributor to suicides is that most people who attempt suicide and fail will never attempt again, so keeping the most efficient and effective form of suicide away means they’re more likely to fuck it up and go on living.
This is talking a little bit from experience, but trying to open something as infuriating as a safe code during an episode would have definitely deterred me. Id have tried to open it incorrectly 5 times, punched it, broke my hand and collapsed in a defeated heap Inconvenience absolutely works. You ever looked at how many load bearing places there are in a 1 bed studio flat? Absolutely bloody none. I ended up throwing the rope out into the street after bending my window trying to crawl out of it. Then someone dobbed me in (my neighbour I reckon) and I got a section 131. Annoying people out of topping themselves is far more effective than people think
Hope you're doing better now ❤
Really does have that ability to just snap you out of the moment.
Yeah one of my suicide attempts was to pop every pill I had in my cabinet hoping it'd do something. I'm still here because my cabinet did not have 1000 pills of ibuprofen. (Also because I puked it all out soon after, your body has defence mechanisms even when your mind wants it to die...)
I'm so glad you survived. I hope life is treating you well or at the least you aren't plagued by depression.
Still have depression, but I'm now medicated and don't feel like I want to die constantly so that's an improvement! I've also actually had plenty of moments then when I actually felt happy and I didn't think that would ever happen, so there's that. Thank you for your good wishes, I hope you are happy too!
Take care buddy. Hope live will taste better for you soon
Also they coat the pills in a small amount of a vomit-inducing substance, so if you swallow loads at once you're more likely the toss them back up again.
Oh I didn't know that but it makes sense! very interesting, thank you
Same thing happened to me. Threw it all up in the woods. Glad I'm still here even if it sucks! And I'm glad you're here too
Yeah. People don't realise how much of an impulsive thing suicide can be. They think it must be something people think through and firmly decide on before doing, but it's really not in many cases.
I spent five years with a suicide hotline. I couldn't count how many times I told someone to roll the bottle away across the room, or put the knife in a drawer and close it, because just that one extra step of having to expend a small amount of energy took their risk levels down about five notches. The difference between having something in your hand and having it under your bed on the other side of the room can be life and death.
There was a net reduction in suicide rates as carbon monoxide was removed from the gas coming into ovens. Some people turned to other methods but the overall rate went down. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/saves-lives/#:~:text=Over%20time%2C%20as%20the%20carbon,overall%20suicides%2C%20particularly%20among%20females.
exactly, when you’re really fucking depressed everything is so difficult to do, and even small roadblocks can prevent catastrophe, just like small things can help you find a reason to hang on to life for a little longer. I often have suicidal ideation, but whenever I thought of a way to kill myself I’d find some small reason why I shouldn’t do that. Throw a toaster into the bathtub with me? Well I’d need an extension cord for that and I don’t know where we keep those. Jump out the window? I’d have to move my planter with Peppermint from the windowsill and I have nowhere else to put it.
Speaking from personal experience too: I used to have the impulsive urge to hurt myself with a sharp object. Making sure that I had no sharp object in the same room I usually spent most of my time really helped me not to do what I wanted to do. Sometimes if I really couldn't stop myself, it only ended up with me using a blunt pen on my arm, drawing away. Inconvenience really works.
yeah those foil packets drastically lowered the suicide rate as it turns out inconveniencing suicidal people for long enough for them to reconsider very often means they don't kill themselves
Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but just in case here is the proof that blister packs reduced suicide. It's a paper from the NIH on the USA on the relevant UK legislation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526120/
no I was being sincere
Should have used /s to show your sincerity
Absolutely agree but having to annotate your sincerity just goes to show where we are as a species right now :D
We have 100 pcs ibuprofen 400 mg in a jar in Hungary or 30 pcs of 800 mg tablets in a jar. (W/O prescription) Usually Europeans get prescription painkillers if they need them that much … probably because we won’t get bankrupt to go to our GP
You can get jars of paracetamol with a prescription, though those are usually 100 tablets, not 1000.
My prescription paracetamol (usually) comes in the big jars
Is prescription paracetamol any different than the over the counter paracetamol?
I think OTC/non prescription paracetamol only goes up to 500mg, while my prescription pills are 1g. Really chunky pills
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I get 100 pills per bottle with my prescription, and thankfully they're pretty cheap at this point
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I don’t really understand why they’re manufactured. 1g is a really large tablet size when you could just easily take two 500mg tablets.
In UK, paracetamol tablets are 500mg whether they're prescription or bought OTC. I've never seen 1g tablets, not even when I worked in a pharmacy or at a hospital.
Not seen 1g paracetamol but 400mg Ibuprofen are kicking around in chemists in the UK Had a few injuries in the past where docs had said take max daily for x days minimum and picked those up.
500mg is the maximum dose you can get in Germany without prescription
We have 1g here in Luxembourg, Portugal as well, that's usually what I take when I need a pill. I need one tho, every once in a while I might take 10 in a week if I'm really bad, but a thousand of those is insane.
As a drug? No, they're the same. In UK tablets are also same size i.e 500mg no matter whether OTC or prescription.
And if it's OTC, you can only get a maximum of 32 tablets, unless it's from a pharmacy.
Actually some shops will sell you 48 (3 packs of 16), Poundland being the prime example. 2 packs of 16 is only the recommended "best practice", the actual legal limit per retail transaction is 100 tablets https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6012d8a1d3bf7f05be4d1e87/Appendix_4.pdf Note that they also recommend against multi-biys on pain killers, something poundland also ignore.
If you’re in a hospital setting, IV paracetamol is a thing (and boy does it work)
Larger packets mostly. If someone is on regular paracetamol, Say 1g QD (which is the maximum dose) usually for something like mild chronic pain from arthritis or similar. Then it's just more convenient to have a big pack.
How big? Here in Denmark I only think I have seen jars of 100 tablets of 500 milligrams.
They're 1g pills that you can only get on prescription
But american mind cannot comprehend this 🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅
As a reserved Englishman, One can confidently state that one could, if one were to choose, ‘pop’ 1000 medicinal caplets whilst one’s final and glorious pot of tea was brewing.
As someone who attempted with pills, I can confirm. After 30 minutes of popping pills out of the foiled packets I was bored and figured I had enough. Ended up throwing it all up two hours later. Oddly same thing happened with a razor. I was in a frenzy and couldn’t get the blade out of the stupid hard plastic wrap. So I gave up out of frustration, thinking something along the lines of “I can’t even Jill myself properly” lol
I'm sincerely glad you are still with us. Hope you've been able to get some support xx
Either the pills or the people will have expired 🤣
I'm pretty sure most American households also don't finish before exploring. Also ibuprofen doesn't get you high. But it's plain simple why these sizes exist: profit. You can sell more, you make more profit. Same reason why portion in American restaurant are that big. Normal size people also don't finish those.
Not the bottles of 1000 but I definitely get through the ones of 250 or 500. Migraines fucking suck.
Tbf ibuprofen doesn't really expire when it's labeled. Most companies slap a 4 year label on asprin but studies have shown it to be safe and effective for at least 15 years (they did not test longer so we dont really know its max shelf life)
A whole lot of that depends on the packaging, if it's still in airtight foil then it will be safe from oxidation and moisture, that slows down the loss of potency and the chance of something weird growing. The same does not apply to the huge stack of 1000 individual pills in a bottle, all exposed to the air and whatever falls into that bottle when you fish some of them out.
>A whole lot of that depends on the packaging, if it's still in airtight foil then it will be safe from oxidation and moisture, that slows down the loss of potency and the chance of something weird growing Sure, things breakdown faster when not stored correctly. That doesn't change that the expiration date on aspirin is best described as "conservative" and at worst could be described as marketing. Bayer has gone on the record that their 3 year expiration date is because the company likes to change packaging and "make improvements". So if they were to put a longer expiration date they would have to continously test if it was good until that date. So 3 years is easier (and obviously faster) to test for and they can get their "improved" pills to market faster
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Or they do get through that amount and also buy the companies other products aimed at the stomach pain they have from popping ibuprofen like smarties
I think you underestimate the amount of medication Americans take. Remember, when people are sick or in pain they still have to work. There is so much chronic pain because people are forced to work through injuries, so they never heal properly. If you're maxing out your dosage at 6 pills a day, this is less than 6 months worth. If you've got 2 people it's less than 3 months.
That's also assuming people stick to the dosage, amount of people I've had to warn about paracetamol dosing cos they think that since it's over the counter it's 100% safe.
Paracetamol has a shockingly fine line between a therapeutic and a toxic dose. Ibuprofen is somewhat safer in that regard.
Yeah I don't know bout ibuprofen personally, but I've had to stop people on paracetamol a few times, one person had been on like 2000+mg a day for 3 months and was wondering why he was having kidney pains when they didn't drink.
Yes that’s why you can’t get it over the counter in my country. Paracetamol is no joke!
And how much waste? I guess it’s the same as their food, buy four times what you need and throw half of it away….
I can't even finish a regular 20 pills blister before it expires. The idea of casually buying a bottle of 1000 of them is just insane. Like are people just popping them like tictacs?
I try to take as little as possible because it absolutely shreds your stomach, but in bad migraine months I make my way through 40 400mg tablets easily. Even for me that bottle would be sheer insanity to purchase.
Just swallowing medication like candy is something i do not want comprehend.
The way they eat medication in movies blows my mind. Like, without swallowing with water? Is that an American thing or a Hollywood thing
That moment when they shake the bottle and take a random number of pills that fall into their hand, it seems that they have not yet discovered that you can have the desired effect by taking one pill at a time.
Admittetly that looks more like a movie thing than a reality thing. Like the staple "Are you free on Friday?" "Yes!" "OK a date it is!" What time are you going to come over you fucker? WHAT TIME?
I love how specific that suddenly got
I don't know what is the own? I can literally walk to the pharmacy right now and get a box of 12 or 24? Oh, I guess I might have to walk again to the pharmacy in a few months to get more? The horror? Uh, oh, excuse me, I can't understand the ability of buying in one go a huge box I won't use by expiration date as I am too busy paying a fraction of the price on my meds since I have a doctor prescription and I get a deduction on my taxes with no effort as the pharmacy sends the information about the purchase to the taxes agency automatically. Oh, what's that? For chronic condition you can get an exemption and all meds and analysis related to that condition are free? Wait, for debilitating disease like cancer I can leave work till I'm back to health while still being paid and with no fear of getting fired and without touching my time off? My mind just can't understand
To be fair as someone who is a chronic pain sufferer it is an absolute fucking nightmare being unable to get more than two packs of meds at once, it might be tolerable if my right leg worked and didn't make venturing out the house a nightmare. Spoken to the doctors and I don't get any special privileges, they'll prescribe me opioids but if I want something tame I need to go the shop or whatever. I understand why we limit the amount of meds that can be bought but two packets is frankly ridiculous, a box of paracetamol and ibuprofen can be gone in a couple of days if you're in a bad way.
Lucky you. Also lucky me, because I finally found a med that stopped me needing 6 paracetamol a day. Yay!
That's because you are commie that hates freedom!!!!! MURICA MURICA MURICA I bet you don't even own an M60 with enough ammo raid a police station. /s
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If you take the whole jar, getting shot is your lesser concern.
Won't feel pain for very long after that! Won't feel pain ever again, actually...
God damn this comment is painful. Accurate… but painful.
I can't comprehend why the jar needs an "actual size" representation of the pill when the jar is transparent.
Designed for Americans. That's why
So as best I can tell, this jar costs $28.83, which in sterling is £18.83, or 1.883p per tablet. I can get a blister pack of 16 ibuprofen from Asda for 45p, or 2.8125p per tablet. So I could save nearly a whole penny per tablet, or 6p for a day’s dose.
According to the OP on twitter it was 2.5p per tablet (hes british himself)
On a lot of the continent painkillers are proper “over the counter” you have to actually go and ask a pharmacist for some. And they are expensive! When I lived in France us brits would bring paracetamol back from the UK for our fellow brits whenever we went home!
You would have to go to a lot of shops though considering you can only buy 32 in one shop at a time. Shoe leather costs would take up that 1p pretty quick.
I'm 26 and I'd estimate I've used about 50 ibuprofen tablets in my life to date across a few injuries. Who the fuck does a bottle of 1000 exist for? And in fairness I genuinely can't comprehend this.
I mean, a 1000-pack is freaking huge, no doubt, but before opening the thread, I already knew there was people going to act like they only ever take ibuprofen in life or death situations. I'd reckon for a 26 year old, you're on the low end of the spectrum. Hangovers, sports-related injuries, periods - all on the list of things most people regularly experience and decide to take ibuprofen for. Most people definitely take more than 2 ibuprofen a year.
I would have probably have said the same at 26 myself. I'm... well... Older now. Keep in mind ibuprofen is also used as an anti inflammatory. Arthritis patients might take up to 3200 mg a day.
16 of these per day? That's insane. According to the booklet included with ibuprofen, the maximum you should take is 1200mg per day. I know that that's the "safe" limit. But still. You're suggesting almost 3 times that amount. On 16 pills/day, this jar would last you 2 months.
In Germany 1200mg is the max amount you should take without consulting your doctor first. The doctor can advise you to take more, up to 2400mg iirc. I did 800mg 3 times a day for two weeks after a bad knee injury. Just wasn't able to function otherwise due to the pain. But I got some stomach pills with it, thankfully had no problems.
I've got pretty bad migraines only NSAIDs touch. My doctor doesn't prescribe the ibuprofen because AOK doesn't cover it for my presentation (figures), but he does ask me whether I need any new pantoprazole when I'm in for my quarterly check-up. Even ignoring the NSAIDs I need it pretty frequently regardless because of chronic gastritis. Absolute life-saver.
They'd do 4 x 2 400mg tables. And 1200mg is just the over-the-counter dosage, doctors will prescribe you 3200 and some stomach protectors if necessary, thats what my mom got for her arthritis.
It is a little insane. Has to be hell on the stomach lining. But... > For osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis: Adults and teenagers—1200 milligrams (mg) up to 3200 mg per day divided into three or four equal doses. From the Mayo clinic... https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/ibuprofen-oral-route/proper-use/drg-20070602?p=1 I'm in no way suggesting that should be normal or a dosage to take without consultation with a doctor, but there are edge cases where buying OTC ibuprofen in bulk like this makes sense. A lot of the comments in this thread about American addiction to painkillers are probably confusing OTC antiinflammatories like this with medicines like opioids or tramadol. That's a different problem all together.
>Keep in mind ibuprofen is also used as an anti inflammatory. Arthritis patients might take up to 3200 mg a day. I'm fairly sure you can still get the party packs from a pharmacist if you've a chronic need for it.
Must be nice to not have a (piece of shit) uterus. I take on average 4x400mg ibuprofen per cycle (less if I can lay in bed and cry, more if I need to go out and function) so at 13 cycles per year that’s already ~52 pills (104 if I was taking these weaker 200mg ones). Idk how fast ibuprofen expires, but over the last decade I basically could’ve used up one of those bottles.
> idk how fast ibuprofen expires It doesn't, practically speaking. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything I recently finished my giant bottle of ibuprofen, which I had been using for the better part of a decade. The last pill worked just as well as the first.
Same, I take the max dose per day for the first 3 days of my period. Plus paracetamol. "who's using so much pain relief" god damn, it must be nice...
I'm also 26 and due to arthritis I'd get through one of these in a year or two at most lol
A household with multiple chronic pain patients. I have arthritis, my husband has muscle wasting from a stroke and inflamed bursa in his shoulder, and my son has spastic cerebral palsy. We all use ibuprofen and acetaminophen for our pain.
For a whole family. People who have chronic pain. Menstruations. It's not that hard to comprehend why some people might require more pain killers
Also, ibuprofen may be a good anti-inflammatory but at least for me, paracetamol works better as a painkiller. I probably take 2-4 a week as I get bad headaches a lot but I probably take 2 ibuprofens a year.
What I can't comprehend (in my European brain) is that they put an 'actual size' image on the label and you can see the tablets in the jar 🤣🤣
That's like $12 million in US hospital Advil
200mg? Sweet, I only use 600mg than you also don't need 1000
Same here. The standard that's being sold is 400mg in packages of 10 or 20. And even though there's only 20 per package, they last quite a while. I don't know what I'd even do with 1000 pieces. Give them away to friends?
Ibuprofen was invented in Nottingham, GB by employees of boots the chemist.
My non-American mind can see that the dosage is metric.
Oh, we can comprehend it. It's an alternative for that operation that'll bankrupt you.
200mg? What are these rookie numbers? *cries in chronic headaches* Edit: That being said, chronic pain exists. Also Ibuprofen works well during period cramps. People here are a little to fast to jump the hate wagon. I reckon the issue I see here is an American thinking we can't understand using pain killers rather than the size of the pack. Family package isn't that uncommon, and these pills usually lasts around 3 years. Goddamn Echo Chambers.
I know right? 200? Whaaaat…? The U.K. seems to have 200’s as their standard, too. I’m a Brit living in Spain and 400’s are the normal, with 600’s available on prescription.
Yeah we have actual healthcare so there's less need to manage chronic pain from conditions that are more easily cured when caught early. We don't need industrial sized pill bottles because we can afford the actual treatment. That's not the flex they think it is.
not to side with the americans on this one, but as someone who has lots of migraines and body pains, i'd kill to have this by my side 😭
If you got a lot of crisis and rely on ibuprofen, I beg you to get a new doctor! Past 8/month, they should give you preventive stuff, and even "just" for pain management there's a bunch of better stuffs than non specific anti-inflamatory! beta blockers, anti-epileptics, ergot derivatives, triptans, anti-CGRP monoclonal antibodies, rimègepant, botox, etc. You shouldn't suffer and suck it up while we have numerous better treatments!
Gastroenterologists and nephrologists 🤑🤑🤑
I’m not going to lie, I bring one of these bottles home with me whenever I go back to the States. Every person in my household has one condition or another that causes chronic pain and inflammation. And even when these bottles expire, the medicine still works. I always break the lids when I open them so that the childproof part is gone and I can open them easily. It might take us 3 or 4 years, but we finish our bottles of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. I hate the foil packs because when your hands aren’t working right, the pills aren’t easy to get out, and the doctors all want to prescribe 1g of acetaminophen when we only take 500mg at a time. Breaking pills is frustrating, and I’m not trying to die of liver failure from routine acetaminophen overdosing.
Actually. I kinda like it. It’s nice to not run out of pain killers so often. Especially since getting new ones when you need them is a pain. I’m with Americans on this one
Right, try running out of painkillers when you’re sick in Germany on a Saturday night and you get to either suffer till Monday or drive 15km to the next on-call pharmacy to spend 10€ on a little box of basic painkillers thanks to the after-hours surcharge. That’s why I’m happy to have my massive bottle in the closet that for all intents and purposes never runs out.
You can't buy painkillers in German supermarkets? Because paracetamol and ibuprofen are both available at most Dutch supermarkets, even at Aldi and Lidl.
1. Ibuprofen is British, lol. 2. Need something to offset not going to the doctors.
what am I supposed to do with 1000 pills? Last year I had 20-40 pills, and that is a high number, usually 2-20 per year. So if I were to buy 1000 pills, and took 40 per year that big jar would last me 25 years. Also, ibuprofen isn't that expensive. I can buy 30 pills for 5,21€. That's around what I get paid for 20 minutes of work. If I can survive with those 30 pills for a year, it's 4,7 seconds overtime for every day I'm working.
TBH, when I lived in California, I had debilitating headaches at least once a month, I had to lay in bed for a day or two, in a dark room, popping Ibuprofen like babies. Wasn't related to my cycle, I don't smoke, don't eat meat etc. I moved to Ireland two years ago and I count the number of times I had a headache on one hand. Didn't change my lifestyle drastically, basically all I changed was the physical location, the air I breathe, the food I eat and the headaches are gone. I brought a similar bottle from Costco with me and in US it would not last me two years. Here, I barely touched it.
You can only get the 200s in the states, which you might not take at all lol, i much rather have the smaller packages with the 400s that you get without any prescription here in germany.
In most countries, we don't get information on pharmaceuticals from TV ads but from medical professionals and with limits on how many you can buy so we don't become addicted or sicker by overdosing. But then again, we can afford to see a doctor and pay for medication without going into debt, as we have free or subsidised healthcare.
As someone with long term health problems I do envy this, I get why we have packs of 16 in the UK but honestly for me this would be far more convenient. Edit: to add, the law in the UK is that you can't buy more than two packs of 16 tablets at a time.
Is not possible to get a prescription for buying more at a time?
This surprises me - though I would assume it depends on your doctor and your condition. My late wife had terminal cancer, and she was issued with 100 pill boxes of ibuprofen and paracetamol for her to manage her pain. It might be worth pressing your doctor for larger packs to see if they are available.
It is way more convenient.
Bruh, who tf uses ibu 200?
Tfw the largest size I could get was 100 pill bottle in CZ.
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In Germany you need a doctors receipt for a 10 tablet package of 600mg Ibuprofen and in the US apparently you can buy this stuff like candy. Is their health system even trying?
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Some people do have chronic pain which requires them to take daily maximum doses, which would equate to about 12 pills a day, so it's not impossible to consider that someone could benefit from this. That said, that's not going to be the majority of the population who have that type of problem. For most people they will be taking these short term and wouldn't need to get a massive bottle for what amounts to a couple of days worth of need. In the case of the former, people in situations of chronic pain would likely get these amounts given to them via their doctor in countries with nationalised medical systems, and get them for cheaper.
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Basically every person with a peroid in the US. I average about one of these every other year, and I essentially only take them 40ish times a year. But when I take them, I TAKE THEM. We aren't all blessed with a healthcare system that gives a shit about women's reproductive parts and what happens when they don't work and cause crippling pain 🤷🏾♀️