• MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Lots of drugs and foodstuffs have biological effects we don’t understand.

      Medicine doesn’t always work by looking at exactly how a molecule interacts with every other molecule in a living organism, but rather by simply observing the effects.

      It doesn’t kill, and it works for most people. Ok, it doesn’t for you, that happens. But I can tell you for a fact it does for me.

      That we don’t understand how it works doesn’t stop it from working, and that it doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean it’s useless for everyone else.

      I for one am happy I was able to buy paracetamol in addition to ibuprofen when I needed it to sleep during an extremely painful ear infection, because no over the counter drug on its own was enough.

      If anything, public knowledge on what exactly it can and cannot do should be improved, as well as what side effects mean you need to look for something else.

      I live in a country where there are strict laws regarding advertising of medical devices and drugs, so there’s very little “snake oil” bs around medicines here. If you let them brands try to claim every mild effect an effective ingredient might have makes their product a cure-all for a litany of symptoms.

      Asking a pharmacist for a recommendation is always a good idea, that’s how I found out I could “stack” the painkilling effect of paracetamol and ibuprofen, and it worked extremely well.

      Obviously, it would have been less ideal if like you I experienced side effects when taking paracetamol.