Let’s talk OTC remedies. A while back I was having trouble hearing out of my right ear. I read up on OTC earwax dissolving kits, and the reviews were mixed, to say the least. But I figured what the heck, and after a week of pouring the magic juice in my ear, things got a bit better. Did that help? Who knows. Of course they continued to get better after I stopped. Maybe the wax took care of itself? Maybe it wasn’t earwax at all and there was a nest of beetles?
At any rate, what OTC treatments work for you, or what do you think is complete hokum? Based on no particular evidence, I’ve always preferred Ibuprofen to Acetaminophen, and the fact that Acetaminophen has a much higher risk of liver-destroying overdoses doesn’t help.
Simple cough drops definitely help me sometimes, even though I don’t think there’s anything involved beyond the sugar. I put antibiotic creams on my minor cuts, although I have never done a side by side test on what happens if I treat one cut but not the other.
Now that fall allergy season is in bloom, do you have any OTC allergy medicines you like? Are there decongestants that work? Or for that matter do you find eye drops help sooth irritation?
Do you find it all useless and go straight to the doctor for the hard stuff? Or maybe you find it can all be recreated with home versions for pennies on the dollar? Or maybe you have a bin full of things you’ve tried once and never used again?
going to the doctor here is useless if you want drugs
paracetamol or ibuprofin are king
you want something more than that..you need a hospital to sign off on it
those fuckers are stingy with their morphine
gib 30 mg
its a fun time
I prefer Alleve to ibuprofen or acetaminophen. But a doctor told me it works better for women than men. 🤷🏻♀️ That’s about the only medicine I take unless I’m really miserable then I down NyQuil and try to sleep through whatever I have.
Aleve is 100% my pain-reliever!!!
Has been, since *just* before it became an OTC med, from being an arthritis & prescription medication, back around 1994.
I high school, I was getting cramps so nad, that I ended up spending a day or two in the school nurse’s office *every* month, because I’d nearly pass out from the “rusty sport being dragged across flesh & shredding one’s insides” feeling.
Mom had me trying *every* OTC med–tylenol did diddly-squat, Ibuprofen only gave me heartburn *on top of* the feelings of my insides being manually shredded, and Midol for some reason (maybe the high caffeine levels mixed with my then-undoagnosed ADHD?) put me to sleep for hours at a time, but *didn’t* take the pain away🙃
So Mom schlepped me to the Dr. I’d seen since childhood, and he said, “The pain receptors that cause cramps *and* the ones that cause arthritis work via the same mechanism… try these, it’s Aleve, and it’ll be an OTC soon–it was originally designed for Arthritis pain,but it might just work. If it doesn’t, come back, and we’ll keep trying to find something that DOES work.”
He handed me about a quart-sized ziplock bag’s worth of sample pills, and sent me on my way.
They WORK for my body–for *whatever* reason, Aleve works for *every* type of pain for me.
It’s all that I took, after I got home, when I chipped the shit out of my vertebrae, and it’s *also* what I took, after getting released from the hospital 5-ish days after my Distal Pancreatectomy.
I didn’t *need* anything else, because my pain tolerance is strange (I can typically just decide to block the messages before they get to my brain, I don’t know *how*, I just think on it, pay attention to where it’s originating from, and basically just tell my brain “Stop listening to that line!” and it *does*😉
And then the Aleve typically picks up anything else coming in on that line & just stops all the rest of it😁💖
Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound.
Lydia Blinkham’s October Brew
For back pain, it is usually Ibuprofen.
For the odd headache, I usually take Asprin.
For those really special bad lousy stupid days, I find good Scotch works.
I stay away from opioids in general because I don’t get euphoric. They help whatever ailes me, but I feel mentally miserable, depressed and more short tempered than normal so I am happy when I stop taking them.
And on an unrelated note,
If I were able to justify a dog right now, time-wise?
This boy would SO be in our house by Monday!😉
Even if… or maybe *because*(?), he does have some Michele Bachmann-level Crazy-Eyes going on!😄😆😂🤣💖
His second picture is the one that cracked me up, and made me think of her😉😂🤣
https://www.petfinder.com/dog/blue-68985242/mn/willmar/hawk-creek-animal-shelter-mn54/
That’s a big doggo!
Aww, that face. ❤️ I hope someone takes him home.
😆 that stare!
I have mild, but just bad enough to be annoying, allergies. The only antihistamine that has ever worked for me is Chlor Trimeton. All the other stuff is like taking a placebo—doesn’t do anything for me. Several years ago a pharmacist let me in on the secret of generic CT which can only be found behind the counter but does not require a prescription. I would get a 100 count bottle that costs less than 20% of the name brand 12 count box.
This year I discovered the 1000 count bottles online. For less than $10. There was much rejoicing.
How much drowsiness does it cause? Knockout levels, or just a little? And how fast does it kick in?
Diphenhydramine works for me, but I find it knocks me out more than I like.
None for me. Like I said my case is mild so the pills are only 4mg. I take one in the morning and one in the evening and I’m all good.
Often for cuts or scrapes I just use Vaseline instead of Neosporin.
OT Ant Update: we sprayed the perimeter of our home and set up bait boxes indoors. Omg so gross they come out at night and there are hundreds of them. They are congregating by the bait boxes which is a good sign. I can’t get over how many there are! Especially because I spent an hour killing hundreds of them this morning. I’m grateful that I can’t smell them 🏠 🐜 🐜 🐜 💀 💀 💀