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[ArticleMedia]
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
By Heather Johnson
Have a headache? Take a couple of asprin. Stomach hurts? Pop some tylenol. Have a cough? Drink some cough syrup. If you think over-the-counter (OTC) drugs can't hurt you, you're dead wrong. Just because you don't need prescriptions to buy them doesn't mean they don't contain powerful medication - they do. And if you aren't careful, certain OTC medications can cause severe, even potentially deadly, side effects.
In the United States there are more than 100,000 OTC medicines to treat everything from upset stomach to a sprained ankle. While these can at times increase your comfort when youʼre not feeling well, they are not without risk. According to Sixwise.com, more than 500,000 Americans end up in hospitals every year because of unintentional OTC drug overdoses, or due to OTC remedies interacting with other medications. Thereʼs also a tendency for people to assume OTC drugs are completely safe, when in reality they all carry potential side effects, some of which can be serious.
One of these OTC drugs that can cause serious problems is cough and cold medicines containing dextromethorphan (DXM), such as: Robitussin, Nyquil, Vicks Formula 44, and Coricidin HBP Cough and Cold tablets. The FDA said that, DXM, when formulated properly and used in small amounts, can be safely used in cough suppressant medicines, abuse of the drug can cause death as well as other serious adverse events such as brain damage, seizure, loss of consciousness, and irregular heart beat. Some think that the cough syrup meant specifically for children is more safe, but every year about 7,000 children under 11 go to the emergency room after taking cough and cold medicines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The steep risks, combined with a lack of evidence proving effectiveness, led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to recommend that cough and cold remedies not be used in children under the age of 6.
Acetaminophen, sold under the brand name Tylenol and also included in more than 200 over-the-counter cold and flu remedies and other medications, is the most widely used painkiller in the United States and is also the leading cause of acute liver failure. In fact, each year more than 56,000 people visit an emergency room because of acetaminophen overdoses, and 100 people die from unintentionally taking too much. Overdosing on Tylenol is incredibly easy because it's in so many different products. It's true that some overdoses were intentional (England has placed restrictions on the number of acetaminophen pills that can be sold at one time due to suicide concerns), but statistics show that most are accidental.
Children under the age of 19 should not be given aspirin because it could lead to a rare, and sometimes fatal, illness known as Reyeʼs syndrome (RS). In children, Asprin can combine with viruses and cause RS. RS can quickly cause life-threatening damage to the liver and brain, and typically occurs in children or teens given aspirin while they were battling a viral illness. Aspirin can cause side affects like nausea, internal bleeding or liver or kidney trouble and ear ringing.
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