Health - Acetaminophen/Tylenol PM. Dangerous?

[RealGanjaMan]

Is it harmful to my body/mind in anyway to take 500mg - 1500mg acetaminophen nightly for a period of up to two weeks?

Latley ive been having some mild insomnia, and ive been using Tylonel P.M. to induce a sleep. I usually take the reccomended dose (1000mg, or 2 Pills) but sometimes when the insomnia is worse I will take 1 or 2 more pills (1500mg - 2000mg). Now I'm guessing this isnt too dangerous/harmful, because that is hardly even over the reccomended dose. The only thing I'm worried about it sometimes I take it nightly for up to two weeks (very rare, usually only about 5-6 days max) and I'm worried that this could be harmful to my liver/etc?

If anyone doesn't know what tylenol P.M. is,
Its an OTC sleep aid with:
Diphenhydramine - 25mg
Acetaminophen - 500mg

So what do you think?
-RGM

[Nagognog2]

Unless you have some sort of physical pain along with insomnia, there is no reason to take the acetaminophen. The stuff is highly toxic to the liver and kidneys. Never take it unless it is absolutely needed. It kills more people each year than any other drug.

One can easily find straight diphenhydramine in drug stores. The least expensive is generic allergy pills. Just read the labels and make sure diphenhydramine is the only active ingredient. This will cost one from 1/4 to 1/3 as much as buying such as Sominex - or other big-name.

[RealGanjaMan]

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

Unless you have some sort of physical pain along with insomnia, there is no reason to take the acetaminophen. The stuff is highly toxic to the liver and kidneys. Never take it unless it is absolutely needed. It kills more people each year than any other drug.

One can easily find straight diphenhydramine in drug stores. The least expensive is generic allergy pills. Just read the labels and make sure diphenhydramine is the only active ingredient. This will cost one from 1/4 to 1/3 as much as buying such as Sominex - or other big-name.

Hmm. I didn't know of these 'diphenhydramine-only' products. I will try to pick some up this week. Thank you sir!

-RGM

[Micklemouse]

Max dose of acetominini-thing - paracetomol where I come from! - is 4g (4000 mg) in 24 hour period, so at those doses, so long as you're not taking anything that pushes you over the max dose, you should be reasonably safe, even taken regularly, providing your liver & kidney/s are in good condition. But as Nag says, unless your in pain there is no reason to take it, & is best avoided...

[bewilderment]

Yeah, I've had insomnia for a very long time and have found that all (or all of them I have found OTC) contain one of two active ingredients: Doxylamine succinate or diphenhydramine. Diphenhydramine is just generic benadryl. Doxylamine succinate products work just as well for sleep though. It's the active ingredient in Nyquil that makes you sleepy, but Nyquil has other things in there that aren't necessary for insomnia and there are tablets which contain doxylamine succinate only.

[RealGanjaMan]

Originally Posted by bewilderment

Yeah, I've had insomnia for a very long time and have found that all (or all of them I have found OTC) contain one of two active ingredients: Doxylamine succinate or diphenhydramine. Diphenhydramine is just generic benadryl. Doxylamine succinate products work just as well for sleep though. It's the active ingredient in Nyquil that makes you sleepy, but Nyquil has other things in there that aren't necessary for insomnia and there are tablets which contain doxylamine succinate only.

yeah i picked up a box of benadryl and they work.
thanks for your help,
-RGM

[antigenesis]

I used it to basically sleep though an entire summer a some years back when I was a minor grounded for bad grades, so I consider myself much more familiar with the drug than the average person. I've found amounts of up to 150mg diphenhydramine hcl can help increasingly with (deep and long) sleep, and personally amounts over that start producing too strong a psycoactive effect for me to fall asleep. 25 or 50mg is good if you have work/school in the morning because mor than that leave you pretty drowsy the next day and makes it hard to wake up. Seeing as I used it to basically kill time, I found out a nice little something about it. I could eat between 175 and 250mg, and if I managed to fall asleep before the pills kicked in all the way (not hard because as your coming up you get drowsy as hell) and kept me awake, I could be dead asleep for 16hrs, waking up feeling decent to good. Just let me warn you that on higher amounts, even small things STARTLE THE SHIT OUT OF YOU, like any sudden movements or scenery changes or anything would send a shockwave through my body. Not to mention that I know somebody who had vivid hallucinations on only 200mg instead of the usually quoted 300mg.

To mention something about my body chemisty for relativity, I ate 300mg and had no hallucinations, though 150mg and up makes me have extremely vivid 'dreams' (I'm not sure whether to consider it a hallucination, or a dream, or something else) when I'm half awake with my eyes closed. Very interesting stuff like closing my eyes and still being able to see my surroundings and people. Though, unlike classic hallucinations from the drug there is no persistence in my mind that what I'm seing is real.

Also, be sure to drink plenty of water because at higher levels it becomes a pretty powerful diuretic.

I hope some of this info helps.

BTW I'm about 5' 9" & 140 lbs.

Edit: I just realized how much of an information contribution my experience with this is and wonder why I never brought it up earlier hahaha.

[Ranke]

If you are having insomnia this might be a chance to get some benzo's or the weird semi psychedelic sleeping pills. If you talk to your doc you might get lucky.