To think paracetamol is just a placebo?

[User321321321321321]

I have taken many over the course of my life, for a variety of different types of pain, mainly headache. However, I can't ever recall an occasion where paracetamol made the slightest bit of difference!!

Is it just a placebo!!?? A big con???

Or are some people simply not susceptible to it?

I don't find it amazing in its own but it improved the efficacy of other drugs like codeine - codeine works much better with paracetamol than without.

Works for me. I take it very rarely though and only for minor pain like a headache.

I wonder if you start to lose the effect of it if you take it a lot

Doesn't really help with pain for me. Works well to bring down debt though. It seems to really help my DC when they are in pain though.

Works for me as i don't really take pain relief often.

it works well for me

I can't take anything else (apart from morphine after having ds) and it works for me (thank god!

No, it's rubbish.

My mum told me take some paracetamol when I had a headache, said it would take the pain away. Ha! I believed her - I was a child - but it didn't work at all. And I don't want to take loads of pills over the course of the day in the hope that it works in the end! That's not "very effective" at all...

I had to take codeine for the pain when I'd had liquid nitrogen pressed into my skin on several areas. Now THAT worked in minutes, which is what I would call "very effective".

Don't confuse pain reduction with fever reduction, they are completely different functions.

AFAIK,
Strength of evidence that paracetomol works for pain is bad; it doesn't pass modern medical trials, as an analgesic it's considered pants. It's consistent and proven at fever reduction, though. Different jobs.

That said, for me personally paracetamol works really very well for any type of pain. Meanwhile, I have an officemate who says it does nothing for him but ibuprofen is marvelous.

So I wonder... officemate has a naturally high blood iron level (genetic condition) & high blood pressure. Meanwhile I'm usually low blood pressure with borderline anemia, with bad circulation. Because paracetamol is a vaso-constrictor, I wonder if it works very differently on the 2 of us.

It works for me on mild pain but really bad period pain or tooth ache and it doesn't touch it.

I tend to use ibuprofen because I fine it much more effective and just presumed most of my pains must be inflammatory. It's interesting to see that there's evidence it doesn't have much effect on some people.

Saying that using both ibuprofen and paracetamol is my go to for my worst pains - period,back, dental - mainly because I figure I can dose it continuously alternating every two hours and not have to risk it wearing off (which it does if I have to wait the recommended four hours).

I'm pretty religious about taking ibuprofen on a full stomach though.

sorry... tale end of that: as far as I recall, ibuprofen is a vaso-dilator, that's why it can reduce inflammation. Opposite physiological effect from paracetamol.

Paracetamol just doesn't work for me at all - unless it's mixed with codeine in my co codamol

IV paracetamol is really good, and as a PP said taken regularly it can help. My DD had spinal surgery and you notice how effective proper pain management is.

It doesn't work for me now. It did when I was younger because I remember taking it for a headache and the stomach ache I also had just vanishing too. Ibuprofen I still notice working this kind of way.

I think I read that it doesn't work on pain for a large proportion of people but it does for some. So not entirely a placebo.

Paracetamol is my 'go to' for most things. I am shocked to hear that people don't think it works! Nurofen/ibuprofen is the crap one for me. Does nothing as far as I'm concerned!

I only realy take it for fever reduction, at which it is very good.

Ibuprofen sends me loopy, for some reason. Never been so scared in my life as when i was given some for a broken bone in my hand - I turned into an entirely different person,. I rang my mum before the effect wore off, and she was so scared she was on the 4 hour train journey to find me within about 30 minutes.

I am quite hard to anelgise / anaesthetise, apparently - it all got quite exciting during an emergency C-section, and had to be given morphine injections afterwards as nothing else worked.

Not due to overuse, I virtually never use it because it literally does absolutely nothing. Ibuprofen will generally work for me, although I only occasionally need it. The only time I would take paracetamol is if I still had a high temp after ibuprofen, but even then the effect is very marginal. If it works for you then great but it has no effect for many people. It also is no safer in terms of bleeding etc than ibuprofen. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/25/does-paracetamol-do-you-more-harm-than-good

It works for me, but I dont take it very often

We call it "dust" in our house as in it's just a tablet made of dust as it does nothing. For the kids it seems to work

Works well for me but I need to take 2 not 1

2 is a normal dose though, I assume everyone saying it doesn't work for them has taken 2?

It has never worked for me and for years (pre Internet) I always thought I was really weird because anytime I had a sore head literally everyone wild say take paracetamol, bunit never did anything. Turns out it does bog all for thousands of others too!

I'm also shocked that people don't think it works.

I never take anything else if I can possibly avoid it. I take it once a month (for a day, so probably 3 x 2 pills) and it takes my period pain from horrendous/writhing pain to totally gone.

It works for me if I have a headache due to a cold.

It works for me, but I take it as directed. If you take one pill as a one-off, no, it may not do much! So follow the instructions.

I strongly disagree. I came home from hospital after five days having had a double mastectomy, and was on only paracetamol. It was ok for about a week but when I started moving around more and doing housework etc I needed stronger pain killers.

It works for me.