I often take painkillers (acetaminophen aka paracetamol), but I’ve noticed that it’s much more effective if I take them TOGETHER with my ADHD medication (ritalin aka methylphenidate) + my morning coffee. If I don’t take them AT the same time, the painkiller is far less effective.
I do not exceed the maximum dosage of painkiller (1gram per intake, mornings), but alone this would barely suffice to kill my morning headache.
My hypothesis is that since the LIVER has to convert all three, I am effectively overdosing on either substance (painkiller or ADHD meds), and damaging my liver in the process.
Talk to your doctor, do not get medical advice from the internet, it is too risky.
Two things:
-
Generally when you take medicine with high acidity food, like coffee, it will break down your medicine prematurely - you won’t get as strong as an effect. I had to stop taking my Vyvanse with orange juice because it basically nullified the medicine.
-
Talk to your doctor. I had chronic headaches that I found out were related to low blood pressure and dehydration. Drinking water instead of diuretics, like coffee, immensely helped me.
-
Wrong question, I would argue. If you have a morning headache, you should really find the root of that and try to resolve it making the medication unnecessary.
Long time headache adventurer here.
You are basically making a homemade Excedrin (acetaminophen + aspirin + caffeine). Stimulants cause your body to metabolize the pain reliever more quickly.
As for if you’re ruining your liver, I can’t say, other than you should probably go see you doctor and ask for a blood panel/ liver function test. Even if your liver values are normal, you’ll know for sure, and have a baseline to compare future tests against. Plus your doctor may have some thoughts on why you’re having a headache everyday.
For me it turned out that while i had acceptable blood pressure, it was high “for me”, and a beta blocker took care of the most frequent headaches. But we didn’t figure that out until we had ruled out a whole bunch of other things.
It was a frustrating journey to be sure. I wish you luck in yours.
Many countries have lowered the max dosage of Paracetamol from 1000mg since there’s indeed a worry that it will cause liver damage. I’m in one of the countries that still go with 1000 (Sweden) and my suggestion would be to use 500mg Paracetamol and 400mg Ibuprofen taken together instead. That’s what the medical professionals themselves do.
That said, something in your life is causing you to have morning headaches and it’s a better idea to fix that. Regular painkiller usage is one of the things that causes it (!). Other possibilities can be waking up during the wrong sleep cycle (deep vs light), sleep apnea causing bad sleep in general, overdosing on caffeine causing withdrawal symptoms in the morning etc.
/Not a medical professional
It’s shockingly easy to OD on acetaminophen. I don’t think you are; i just think it’s interesting how a few Tylenol plus a couple doses of cold medicine can be serious.
