Safe Use of Over-the-Counter Pain Relievers and Fever Reducers > Careful: Acetaminophen in pain relief medicines can cause liver damage || Liver Diseases: MedlinePlus

Careful: Acetaminophen in pain relief medicines can cause liver damage

Acetaminophen (a∙SEET∙a∙MIN∙o∙fen) is an active ingredient in many over-the-counter and prescription medicines that help relieve pain and reduce fever.

More than 600 over-the-counter and prescription medicines contain acetaminophen. Some medicines combine acetaminophen with other active ingredients to treat pain, symptoms of colds, flu, allergy, and sleeplessness. To find out if an over-the-counter medicine contains acetaminophen, look for “acetaminophen” on the Drug Facts label. If a prescription medicine contains acetaminophen, the label may not spell out the whole word or may have the abbreviation “APAP. “

 

Severe liver damage may occur and may lead to death if you take:

• more acetaminophen than directed
• more than one medicine containing acetaminophen
• acetaminophen while drinking 3 or more alcoholic drinks every day

 

Most healthy people can take acetaminophen safely by:

• not using more than one medicine containing acetaminophen in a day
• reading and following all the information on the medicine label, or the information given by your doctor

Ask your doctor before using acetaminophen if you:

• have liver disease
• are taking the blood thinning drug warfarin (also known by the brand name Coumadin)

To take acetaminophen safely, make sure you understand:

• how much you can take at one time (dose)
• how many hours you must wait before taking another dose
• how many times you can take it each day
• when you should not take it and talk to your doctor

If you take too much acetaminophen you might have liver damage and not know it. Symptoms may not appear for days and early symptoms may seem like the flu, like loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice).

 

If you take too much acetaminophen, get medical help right away, even if you don’t feel sick.

For immediate help, call:

 

Poison Control Center

1-800-222-1222or

911

 

For more information:

talk to your doctor, nurse, or pharmacist

visit FDA online at www.fda.gov/drugs1

call FDA at 1-888-INFO-FDA, or

e-mail questions to druginfo@fda.hhs.gov

Safe Use of Over-the-Counter Pain Relievers and Fever Reducers > Careful: Acetaminophen in pain relief medicines can cause liver damage

Liver Diseases

URL of this page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/liverdiseases.html

 

Also called: Hepatic disease 

 

Your liver is the largest organ inside your body. It is also one of the most important. The liver has many jobs, including changing food into energy and cleaning alcohol and poisons from the blood. Your liver also makes bile, a yellowish-green liquid that helps with digestion.

There are many kinds of liver diseases. Viruses cause some of them, like hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Others can be the result of drugs, poisons or drinking too much alcohol. If the liver forms scar tissue because of an illness, it's called cirrhosis. Jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, can be one sign of liver disease.
Like other parts of your body, cancer can affect the liver. You could also inherit a liver disease such as hemochromatosis.

open here to see/read/learn and download the liver diseases informations:

Liver Diseases: MedlinePlus

 

 

MEDICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA  

• 5'-nucleotidase
• Abdominal CT scan
• Abdominal MRI
• Abdominal tap
• Abdominal ultrasound
• Albumin - serum
• Alcoholic liver disease
• Aldolase test
• ALP
• ALP isoenzyme test
• 
  

  ALT Amebic liver abscess Ammonium ion Antimitochondrial antibody Ascites AST Autoimune liver disease panel Biliary atresia Bilirubin - urine Bleeding esophageal varices Diet - liver disease Ferritin Gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase Hepatic encephalopathy Hepatic hemangioma Hepatic ischemia Hepatic vein obstruction (Budd-Chiari) Hepatocerebral degeneration Hepatomegaly Lactate dehydrogenase test LDH isoenzymes Leucine aminopeptidase - blood Leucine aminopeptidase - urine Liver biopsy Liver disease Liver scan Peritonitis - secondary Peritonitis - spontaneous Portacaval shunting Protein electrophoresis - serum Pyogenic liver abscess Quantitative nephelometry Serum phosphorus Serum TBG level Total iron binding capacity Total protein Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS)

  

  

Related Topics

• Cirrhosis
• Hepatitis
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis B
• Hepatitis C
• Jaundice
• Liver Cancer
• Liver Transplantation
• Reye Syndrome
• Wilson Disease
• Digestive System

National Institutes of Health

• The primary NIH organization for research on Liver Diseases is the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases