Answers to previous post

Tylenol...........

It is time to respond to a quiz from a previous post,

I asked a few questions a few days ago and received quite a few responses.

Here were the questions:

Q1- Your child is 20x more likely to develop Autism if they are given “A” between 12-18 months.

Q2- Using “B” while pregnant increases the risk of your child developing ADHD.

Q3- Using “C” can greatly increase your risk of liver damage.

Q4- Using “D” is responsible for over 50,000 ER visits and 500 deaths per year

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First let me thank everyone for replying. My goal is multifold.

1. To get everyone thinking.

2. To create a community of individuals who enjoy learning how to improve their health while sharing their knowledge with everyone in a safe environment.

3. I enjoy seeing how smart and educated my readers are.

So enough of that.

Let’s get to the answers.

The answer to all of the questions, A - D was indeed Tylenol, aka Acetaminophen.

Quite a few of you replied with Tylenol as the correct answer.

So why did I put these questions out there?

Well…………….

When I was growing up as well as when I was early in my medical training, Tylenol was recognized as a safe medication to use for pain and fever. When I grew up and became a real doctor, one that practices Traditional and Functional medicine as well as looking at root cause mechanisms, I kind of jumped off that bandwagon and rarely recommend Tylenol.

Why?

Well how can I ignore the issues mentioned in the quiz?

I can’t.

Also if fever is an immune system mechanism that helps it fight infections, why would I want to suppress that?

If inflammation is the most common cause of pain, and Tylenol is NOT an anti-inflammatory, why would I want to use Tylenol if it does not work on the mechanism that actually caused the pain?

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Let’s go the questions:

Your child is 20x more likely to develop Autism if they are given “Tylenol” between 12-18 months. — This is a debate going on that it could be Tylenol given with childhood vaccines that could be a bigger culprit in Autism than the vaccines.

Using “Tylenol” while pregnant increases the risk of your child developing ADHD. — While I have ADHD and I find it has benefited me, that is not always the case with everyone. So regardless of where you stand on ADHD, why take a chemical compound such as Tylenol if it carries a potential risk to your baby?

Using “Tylenol” can greatly increase your risk of liver damage. — I have seen this way back when I used to work in hospitals. It occurs more often than we think.

Using “Tylenol” is responsible for over 50,000 ER visits and 500 deaths per year. —

Those are big big numbers for an over the counter medication that many believe is harmless.

So what do we do?

I rarely use pain meds or fever reducers containing Tylenol unless something is very very uncomfortable and then use the lowest amount possible. The best amount is ZERO, but if you need to use it then stay at 2000mg a day, in divided doses, or less to be safe.

Also if using Tylenol try adding some N-Acetyl Cysteine, aka NAC. A good deal of the liver toxicity from Tylenol is that it clears the body and uses up most of the Glutathione, the most plentiful antioxidant in the body. When Glutathione is used up, the liver can not defend as well against excess oxidation/inflammation, and severe liver injury can occur, along with other organs eventually affected.

Definitely beware of Tylenol if you also drink alcohol, are malnourished, are fasting and thus low in natural NAC production, already have liver disease, or if you are on medications that go through the same liver pathways as Tylenol.

Hopefully this was helpful.

Questions and comments welcome below.