cheap paracetamol vs the expensive kind

[queenofthepirates]

Is there any difference medically speaking?

Nope. One's in a pretty box and will cost you more money.

Not as far as I know.

Only the price and the colour of the packaging.

None at all. Paracetamol is paracetamol, whatever packet it comes in.

None at all. None, nothing, nada.

The taste is different, my dc are more likely to pull faces at the cheap ones. Can't say it's enough to motivate to pay for the expensive type though

There is some evidence that the placebo effect makes the more expensive kind give better pain relief. But pharmacologically speaking there's no difference!

Expensive brands tend to be coated making them easier to swallow. That for me makes it worth spending the extra as there's nothing worse than paracetamol tablets in your mouth that have started dissolving.

Same stuff.

No. If the medicine number (printed on the box) is the same, the contents are the same.

Fast acting or targeted painkillers are also a con - there was a BBC1 show not too long ago about this.

I'm told there's an 8 or 12 [vague face] number on every packet of drugs which is its international drug registration number for the active ingredients. If these are the same, the drug is identical. The last paracetamol I bought though was 39p and nasty old fashioned breaky chalky tablets that I had trouble getting down. I would spend another 15 or 20p to get a caplet.

This was in Which? this month - Panadol Advance, £1.58 and Tesco paracetamol, 19p, both contain the exact same active ingredient (500mg of paracetamol per tablet).

Cross post flisspaps. I think my DH watched the same programme you did! Thanks for being more concise.

Saying that, some of the "'flu remedies" contain other 'useful' things like caffeine and decongestant as well as the paracetamol.