Born in the 70’s, did you have paracetamol etc?

[PersephoneParlormaid]

As a child I don’t remember being given any medicine if I was ill, only if I went to the doctors and was given antibiotics. If I was unwell I was wrapped in a blanket and put in bed with a hot water bottle. Were you given any painkillers like we give today?

I was born in 1957, I remember my mum having askit powder, came in a little piece of paper.
we got a little bit of it dissolved in water.

Born 1975. We had junior disprin dissolved in a watery orange squash for headaches or fevers, then switched to AsproClear when that came out. I also remember having adult paracetamol crushed in a teaspoon of honey when I had measles.

Yes, I suspect that OTC medicine was relatively expensive. Our household was pretty hard up, although I have had my memory jogged and now remember the smell of witch hazel which was dabbed on on cotton wool for injuries. We never had plasters either! I have grown up fairly sturdy on the health side despite all this, but my mum and dad must have suffered along with my brother and me when we had things like earache or stomach ache and there was nothing they could give us.

We also had what my sister called baby orange when she was unwell. Made with hot water, she didn't like ribena, fussy bugger.

My Dad used Andrews Liver Salts. Him mixing it late at night used to wake me up and if I asked him what was wrong he'd reply "bad beer". Too much in fact of good beer.

Vicks was put in a jam jar with hot water as a vapouriser and in the 80s Olbas Oil for colds, sprinkled on a handkerchief to sniff.

liquafrita for coughs
calpol for fever
vicks and eucalyptus crystal in a hankie for stuffed nose
dequadin for sore throats (loves those!)
TCP for grazes and sore throats too I think?
never had locusade as my mum thought it was common
Horlicks tablets and liquorice sticks from the chemist were a treat!
Tunes, Mentholyptus, Victory V and lockets too
what were the medicated flavour sweets in the sweet shop that were really nice? Mum would get a 1/4 sometimes and we loved them and made you feel better.
we were rarely ill, hardly ever missed school and somehow missed chicken pox until my 17th birthday which was nice 🤣

Yes it was always disprin for any sort of pain or flu, milk of magnesia for stomach ailments and calamine for the skin. That was about it.

Disprin
Milk of magnesia
Worm tablets (horrible red ones)
Vicks
I remember taking panadol as a teenager for a headache
Night nurse came out when we were teenagers - id say it was liquid paracetamol with dozal!

In retrospect I used to get awful throat infections and was on antibiotics for swollen every year. When I reached my 20s I took paracetamol at the first sign of swollen tonsils, took it every 6 hours and went to bed, and never needed antibiotics again.

Nope nothing I look back and recall how ill I felt at times with fevers etc and wonder if my parents neglected me but apparently this thread confirms it was a thing to get nothing. My nanny gave me Lucozade 😂

Lemsip.
Disprin or similar - either mashed on a teaspoon with jam, or dissolved and nasty.
Vicks vaporub
Tunes
Night nurse
Karvol - those little amber coloured squeezy bottles with menthol-y stuff in them, snip the end off and drip on pillow!
Witch hazel for bruises
Honey and lemon to supplement the Lemsip
Lucozade at grandmas if poorly
Arnica tablets “for shock” ( was most peeved as an adult to find out they were just a homeopathic placebo 🤣)

Soluble aspirin for us in the 70s.
I liked the taste of kaolin and morphine.
I'm not sure when paracetamol became widely used.

Just to clarify, @elm26 is not my daughter.

Junior disprol is what we got

Soluble aspirin I think, for pain.

Minadex for multi vitamins (I liked that one).

Milk of magnesia for upset stomach.

Nasty banana flavour antibiotics

And once, syrup of figs 😬that put me off figs for 40 years.

Mind you, the dentist used to recommend a Mr Man ice lolly for post-extractions. Thins were different then 😆

I got medicine as a child when needed. We always has soluable aspirin. I would get if sick. I can recall soothing drinks if sore throat, sometimes an ice lolly too. Antibiotics if more sick used to get tonsillitis a lot.

While we didn't have calpol or sinilar I was not left to just get on with it if sick. My mother had many flaws but if sick she looked after you.

Yes, paracetamol and aspirin. I suffered terribly with bad headaches but couldn't get past swallowing pills until I reached my teens. I used to crush them up with sugar, vile.

As a side, there used to be this med the doc would give for earache, wow, it was so nice! I only had it once but still remember it.

Disprin for us. Then paracetamol.

I had fairly strong painkillers for bad pain. Other than that, it was Disprin. I don't remember paracetamol before the '80s.

Calpol was the standard for children in the early 90s when my children were born. I'd never heard of it before. It was dinned into new parents that aspirin had been banned for under-12s because of a rare but serious medical problem, but fortunately we also had ibuprofen by then. Discovered by British scientists working for Boot's, I learn from Wikipedia which says Ibuprofen was first sold in 1969 in the United Kingdom and in 1974 in the United States.

That baby orange was delicious. Would love to taste it now. Karvol capsules were great too.

I don't remember Calpol existing as a child. I remember having penicillin or amoxicillin which were either pink or yellow. We also had cough medicine which was red and sort of cherry flavoured or we'd be given Tunes for a sore throat or my Grandma would fish out an old packet of Fisherman's Friends from the bottom of her handbag. If you were off school my mum would fetch a bottle of Lucazade from the local shop.

We did have Lemsip as teenagers which I guess contained paracetamol

I got tonsillitis a lot too. I now believe that if i had been given paracetamol early on, the infections wouldn't have gotten so bad. I've managed to not have antibiotics for years as an adult, by treating myself immediately with paracetamol at the first twinge in my tonsils.

The yellow antibiotic was indeed lovely.

I never knew what the worming stuff was called but omg you are right it was vile. My mum was obsessed with it, and if she suspected any of the three of us had worms we all had to have it. I bet we literally never had them, just one of my manky little brothers had been spotted scratching his arse.

I only had the lucozade in cellophane when I was feeling sick, hence have never ever been able to stomach the stuff because the association with vomit is so strong.

Otherwise it was TCP and germolene as others have said. Loved everything about germolene, the tin, the colour, the smell… perfection. The very occasional junior disprin. Vicks vapour rub yes, the fancy nose stick a definite no.

Mum also was a firm believer in Andrew’s salts for dealing with upset tummies.

Lucozade for all illnesses. Milk of Magnesia for stomachs. Vics for colds. TCP. Tiny liquorice type sweets for coughs which had a name I probably shouldn't mention. Fisherman's Friends. No recollection of any pain killers at all! Smarties I think instead seemed to help!

Yes - my mum dished out 'Junior Aspirin' - they were orange flavoured. In those days it hadn't been identified that there was a risk in young children taking aspirin. We also had Actifed Linctus for coughs and Kaolin and Morphine for diarrhoea.

I used to suffer from earache a lot as a small child and I was prescribed penicillin, which for children came as a revolting banana flavoured liquid.

We had whatever childhood vaccines were around then - I remember having to go along to the doctors with my mum when my sister was having her baby 'jabs' and seeing them stick a needle in her bum. I don't know what they were but definitely not MMR as children have nowadays because I remember having measles, mumps and rubella infections as a child.

Rubella I remember barely feeling ill at all but being absolutely covered in spots. All girls were given a Rubella vaccination at the age of 12 at school, whether you'd had rubella itself or not, and then the following year, the infamous BCG with the absolutely massive needle unless your preceding five-needle prick showed you had natural immunity for TB.