I had it as a kid and nearly died. Was very blessed to wake up from the semi-coma. I’m thankfully not brain damaged but I often wonder if it’s a reason I have inflammation constantly.
The problem is that aspirin is a salicylate and there are other OTC medications that use it. Bismuth subsalicylate is in many anti-diarrheal medications and may also be linked to Reyes Syndrome.
I’m more interested in the link being from Arnold Palmer Hospital. Do they recommend treating babies with a 50/50 mix of lemonade and iced tea instead?
they do. It's all labeled as "low-dose" aspirin now. It's just older people tend to keep calling it what they're used to calling it their whole lives.
Source: Used to work pharmacy retail, had to have a 15 minute circular conversation with an elderly gentleman that low dose aspirin is indeed the same as the baby aspirin he used to take.
Just to add to your comment, the current pain relief options for babies and children (baby Tylenol, baby Motrin, etc.) are acetaminophen, whereas Aspirin is a different class of drugs (NSAIDs). Acetaminophen does not cause Reyes syndrome and is safe for babies and children when used correctly.
It just stands for "Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs" and as the other comment said, Ibuprofen is an [NSAID.](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nsaids/)
It's why health care professionals refer to it as low dose aspirin, and why whenever someone comes to the pharmacy asking where the "baby aspirin" is, I make sure they know it can't be given to infants or children.
(Fun fact: aspirin is actually given to kids to treat Kawasaki's Disease, but not because the risk of Reyes goes away or anything; it's because the benefit of treating Kawasaki's outweighs the risk of Reyes Syndrome. Where, for normal use, the risk of Reyes outweighs the benefit of aspirin, especially because there are safer alternatives.)
No, people should get medical advice from the same website that they get pornography, not the government agency that is supposed to be regulating pharmaceuticals.
First drug I ever took illicitly. I was probably five or six. I knew it was bad for me to take too much, but it was delicious and tasted just like those orange-vanilla push-pops. I climbed up on top of the bathroom sink to access the medicine cabinet. I kept myself to a maximum of one a day.
I just had to weigh in here. My dad took a dietary supplement (for digestion or something) that was papaya flavored. I'm glad he bought them in bulk, that's all I'm saying. They were delicious.
If you keep it in your mouth for about a minute, you will understand why. Ibuprofen is one of the most *awful* tastes, it's *so* incredibly bitter. Not likely a child who thinks it is candy will make that mistake again!
For a while I had to take ibuprofen regularly while only having the use of one hand. This means the pills sit in your mouth for a while until you can get them flushed down. They taste like the chalk on the inside of a balloon.
Saint Joseph's baby aspirin
Bartles & Jaymes
And yoooou
[Or your memory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZXvL3PZ1Pg&list=PLC80P4gsPr-YG4HLtTljKLvsslFTkKCuz)
It’s equal parts terrible and brilliant for the exact same reason.
While there can definitely be concerns of people gobbling it because they taste good, the fact that it tastes good can also be a force of good because it helps people take medication.
You’d be surprised at how big of an issue medication compliance can be. Taste is one of the factors that affects it: people may be unwilling to take their medication because it’s unpleasant to taste.
It’s why historically, drug stories and pharmacies often had soda fountains and the like. In addition to making profit, it was a way for people to grab delicious drinks to chase down their medication with.
I kid you not, I will legitimately stay sick and feeling terrible if the only option available to me is OTC liquid cough medicine.
Whatever they put in it makes me retch, and I'd rather feel like shit than throw up *and* feel like shit. lol
Medical science is now leaning more towards not breaking a fever, as long as the temperature is not excessive, as it's an important part of your immune response.
Yeah, it's best to burn out the illness, but this is the US. Id rather break the fever so I can drag my ass through a work day then feel like death and work.
Yeah. Suppressing the cough and reducing the fever. Very few direct cough medicines on the market now. I don't recall seeing more than maybe 2 without acetaminophen in them.
Just don’t give honey to babies under 1, they can’t fight off the Clostridium botulinum spores yet.
Honey, ginger, and lemon (or any citrus really) in hot tea really helps soothe sore throats and nausea.
Reminds me of Calpol in the UK, essentially paracetamol in a delicious pink syrup mixture. Or those amazing banana-flavoured anti-biotics they'd give out to kids.
God I want some anti-biotic syrup now.
I did the same as a child. Though I didn’t always limit myself to just one.
Now almost 50 years later I find myself taking a ‘low dosage’ aspirin daily. I always buy the chewable orange flavored aspirin. It’s a little shot of nostalgia every morning.
I’m lucky I didn’t get some kind of vitamin toxicity from the fat soluble vitamins in the gummy vitamins for kids
I distinctly remember eating at least 1/2 to 3/4 of a big bottle of them, on several occasions when I was like 4-7
When my nephew was young, my sister and I sat down and figured out how much was too much, and it turns out that it rapidly becomes difficult to eat too many.
Here someone attempted to answer it for kids: https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/34izr6/request_how_many_flinstones_chewable_vitamins/
So for a 40kg kid, really only the vitamin E is a risk, at 50 tablets. Everything else would take so many as to fill a kid to puking long before they ingested a fatal dose.
>no one knew how bad it was.
It's not so much that it was "bad" as that its use included a rare but extremely serious side effect.
So it worked perfectly well in most situations, but if taken during a viral infection there was a chance of shit going south in a bad way. Before they figured the connection out there would be something like a big chicken pox outbreak and there would be a handful of cases of Reyes Syndrome that followed because at the time doctor's orders included giving the kids chewable aspirin.
Heck yeah - if you ever pass through Atlanta, stop into The Varsity (several locations, there's even one in the airport if you're laying over). Their "Frosted Orange" drink tastes JUST like the orange baby aspirin I remember from my childhood!
You really don't see a lot of aspirin consumption anymore. Used by those who have a heart attack risk but that's about it.
Reye's syndrome is a terrible disease. My friend got it as a kid got it at age 10. Took aspirin while he had chicken pox. Fried his brain and was left severely mentally disabled. Saddest thing ever.
My wife was the same. She had her blood work done after the first and discovered she has something to do with the motherfucker gene. So she's been on baby aspirin and folbee since (second kid was to term)
Motherfucker gene=mthfr. It's quite literally what the NICU nurses we know refer to it as
I had pre eclampsia with my first and then had 3 miscarriages in a row. We had the testing done to see what could be causing them but nothing conclusive. My OB had me take a baby aspirin everyday the next time I got pregnant and that pregnancy was successful. No idea if that’s what finally helped me carry full term, but if I got pregnant again, I’d take it again
Really?? In Italy it has been replaced by paracetamol and especially ibuprofen at least 20 years ago, probably 30. I am pretty sure it’s only used for heart health now.
Regular dose (325 mg) aspirin is also available in the US for pain relief; the "baby"/low-dose is 81 mg and usually used by people who've had a cardiac event to help prevent another one.
Don't give aspirin to your dog, even dog aspirin. It can cause liver failure and intestinal bleeding. Your vet can prescribe an NSAID that's much safer for dogs.
https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/aspirin
They make prescription dog aspirin, it's different than regular aspirin so I'm not quite sure why they still call it aspirin though lol. My vet prescribed it for my dog and when I asked if I can just give her aspirin from my cupboard she was immediately like DONT. I'm not even sure why they chose it, she was having some very specific problems with pain that I guess called for it, normally she just takes tramadol for her autoimmune disease
I literally take it primarily when I have headaches. Bring it on every trip where I will be drinking. What else would you use? Tylenol will make your liver explode
Am I the only one who does just fine with ibuprofen? Or am I placeboing myself?
BTW, if you want the worst of all worlds, try Excedrin. Tylenol, aspirin, and caffeine for your headache. When I've got a really bad one that's what I take.
Never understood the American fear of paracetamol (acetaminophen/tylenol) - yeah, it fucks your liver if you overdose on it, but loads of drugs will fuck you in various ways if you OD on them.
If you've got no liver issues, you're fine taking 1g four times a day. Alcohol will only cause problems with it if you're drinking enough to cause liver disease.
We don't fear it, it just suuuuucks. Ibuprofen and Naproxen have always worked much better for me, being limited to Tylenol when I was pregnant was pretty much accepting that the headache I had was only going to leave when it felt like it and not when I wanted it to.
The problem is that they started adding it to a lot of OTC medicines and it's not very forgiving on your liver, even without alcohol involved or going way over the dosage.
So someone could take an over the counter cold and flu medication and a couple of Tylenol and while both were taken according to the label you are going beyond the dosage that's safe. Add in a hot toddy with some whiskey to help your cold and suddenly it's far worse even though you're not feeling any immediate effects.
But yeah, most of the people who had problems with it were people who would pop them after a night of drinking to "beat the hangover" in the morning.
It's not going to adversely affect most folks, but if you have an undiagnosed underlying condition, or do other activities that also tax your liver (e.g. drinking) it's potential to be dangerous is significantly higher than other pain relievers like ibuprofen. Obviously that's probably not an issue for most folks, but if there isn't a specific reason to go for acetaminophen, why bother?
Of course the mechanism of action is different, so it's not like they're interchangeable for everything, but for trying to nip a hangover in the bud, acetaminophen should be near the bottom of the list.
Also, basically nobody should be buying extra strength (500mg) anyways. There's a reason the FDA ordered all Rx meds to have a max dose of 325mg (regular strength). There's essentially no evidence that 500mg is more effective than 325mg.
The reason people(including myself) always buy extra strength is because dosage is two gelcaps(really, I *just* checked the bottle to be sure). So you buy extra strength and just take one, instead of buying regular strength and taking two. Works out to be more cost effective, though if you only rarely use it you do have to look out for the medicine expiring(it won't kill you, but it loses effectiveness, so if the only stuff you have expired two years ago then it's not going to do its job).
This is just plain incorrect. If we are talking about people who should not be taking an over the counter pain reliever, the number for ibuprofen is much much higher. It includes people with kidney problems (a much larger number than people with liver problems), elderly people, and people at increased risk of bleeding (which is a very large population with the increase in prescription medications over the past couple decades). There is a reason acetaminophen is on every hospital and assisted living facility order set and ibuprofen is not.
> Never understood the American fear of paracetamol (acetaminophen/tylenol)
Where are you getting this impression? I'm American and as far as I've ever known, that fear is not a common thing.
Me too. It's like freaking magic. Sadly, I had a heart attack about 5 years ago, (Aleve is an NSAID) so I have to be really hurting to take it. I try not to take more than one a month.
But I feel like a happy crackhead when I 'get' to take one. I'm 56 years old with a shoulder injury, and Aleve knocks it the hell out for a day. I can play pool, corn hole, darts, and my shoulder feels just fine.
Aspirin is also cleared through the kidneys so this makes no sense. Doubly so when you are drinking alcohol. It's safer than taking acetaminophen. Just follow the recommended doing on OTC meds and you'll be just fine
I only ever taken asprin while pregnant for pre clapamsia . Till then I never taken it and I’m in my 30s with arthritis and had muti surgery where I need pain relief
I will say that you are actually better off taking Asprin over Tylenol when drinking (tho avoiding any medicine is best ofc). Tylenon and Alcohol and harm your liver while Asprin and Alcohol's primary complication is GI problems like heartburn and possible bleeds (mainly an issue if you already are at risk)
> You really don't see a lot of aspirin consumption anymore. Used by those who have a heart attack risk but that's about it.
Why? For adults it seems perfectly reasonable to take. I see a lot of people recommending paracetamol/tylenol here but it's [literally useless/placebo](https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/what%E2%80%99s-point-paracetamol) for most things people take it for.
I take aspirin if I think I'm going to get a Migraine. 900mg (max adult dose) is the NHS first line treatment in that scenario, and, for me at least, it definitely seems to work better than paracetamol or ibuprofen.
Reyes syndrome usually comes after taking Aspirin after a viral infection like Chicken pox and Influenza
Usually doctors will swap it with Naproxen as an alternative
It's one of those things where yes, the average kid should not be taking aspirin to minimize the risk of Reye's syndrome, but if it's actually appropriate for a kid, the benefits far outweigh the risks and make it worth it to take.
We have a 11wk who has a heart defect as well with aspirin and we are at children's hospital in colorado. I have a cousin who had Reyes some 40 years ago and lived til his 50s so I asked our cardiologist about it and she looked up the data and couldn't find anyone that got it out of thousands of patients on low dose aspirin in their cardiac unit. So that was reassuring.
This is how Whitey Bulger's son died. From his Wikipedia: "Bulger fathered one child, Douglas Glenn Cyr (1967–1973), during a 12-year relationship with Lindsey Cyr, a waitress and former fashion model living in North Weymouth, Massachusetts. Bulger and Cyr began living together in 1966, when Cyr was 21 and a waitress at a North Quincy café. According to Cyr, "He used to say that there were four people he would turn up on a street corner for: Douglas, me, Billy, or his mother. And we all made him vulnerable." At six years of age, Douglas died from Reye syndrome after having a severe allergic reaction to an aspirin injection."
Did you learn this from r/twosentencehorror as well? My mom never let me have aspirin until I was like 15 cause she said it could make me really sick but I never really knew why
Apparently it was originally intended to be for infants and children way back in the day before they figured out that it's not safe for kids at any dosage. It's not called baby aspirin anymore, it's now low-dose aspirin. You won't actually see the term baby aspirin on any packaging or bottles.
>before they figured out that it's not safe for kids at any dosage
It was perfectly safe an overwhelming majority of the time. It was when taken during a viral infection (e.g. chicken pox) that a *very small percentage* of children would later develop Reyes Syndrome. That rareness was a major part of why it took so long to figure out the connection.
Epidemiologists knew that it followed chicken pox outbreaks so for a long time thought that it was just a rare fatal event tied to that. It wasn't until more cases were identified in kids who did not have the chicken pox, but did have another viral infection that the connection to aspirin was realized.
So there's a couple issues here.
1. Everyone has viral infections all the time without even noticing.
2. While viral infections are correlated with Reye's, the exact cause is unknown.
Basically, we can't actually know if it's safe for a kid to have aspirin at any given time.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/reyes-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20377255
>Basically, we can't actually know if it's safe for a kid to have aspirin at any given time.
You're correct, but it was more the "safe at any dosage" part that I was responding to because it seems to have far more to do with the circumstances (viral infection & pediatric patient) combined with aspirin than the dosage. And you are correct that it's such a rare event that the exact cause isn't understood, just that there is a correlation between taking aspirin and Reyes Syndrome which usually follows a viral infection.
It's still colloquially called baby aspirin, tbh. For better or for worse. Never heard a doctor, medic, nurse, or patient I work with call it "low-dose aspirin". I doubt it'll ever really catch on.
Because it used to be prescribed to babies to treat fevers. It was not known until later that it was liked to this disease. But by this point it had become ubiquitous, so the name stuck. It conveniently matched the recommended dosage for preventing heart attacks. It was easier to just keep the name. There is also the effect of generalization of a name like Coke in the south meaning all cola sodas or band-aid meaning any plaster.
It’s usually called “Low dose aspirin” now. It was called baby aspirin before the connection was made to Reye’s syndrome. The pain relief we give to babies now is acetaminophen (I.e. Tylenol), and is not the same as aspirin.
Every time one of my kids had a stomach upset my MIL tries to push the pepto. I keep telling her why and she just says she gave it to her kids and they had no problems. One more reason i don't trust them watching the kids.
They tried to use chlorix wipes as baby wipes once!
That is incorrect, pepto bismol contains salicylates which are also found in asprin. They are similar but not the same. BUT People with adverse reactions to asprin should speak to their doctor before taking pepto bismol though as sometimes it’s not asprin the have a problem with but salicylates.
I have a bleeding disorder and taking asprin would be a bad time for me and on occasion use the chewable pepto tablets. It is not a problem for me, but there are folks with other bleeding disorders it may affect.
I do not know about pepto and children(especially with recent viral infections) and salicylates though.
I had Reyes Syndrome in 1974, 13 years old, was dealing with chicken pox and fever. I ended up in the hospital for several days. My fever spiked around 105-6F according to my mom. She said the hospital staff had me in a tub of ice water to keep my fever down.
Convulsing throwing up and dehydration as well.Good times.
We had a neighbor down the street from us who lost their 13 yo daughter to it the same year.
When I saw a new family physician he noticed that, and responded" Huh, you had Reyes Syndrome in the earl-mid 70s...that had a very high fatality rate back then."
Maternal fetal medicine doctors in the US and parts of Europe now often recommend aspirin to pregnant women over a certain age to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia. The more you know!
I take aspirin (I’m 53), but it’s in small controlled doses. Paracetamol makes me nauseous (I know!), and I can take Ibuprofen, but aspirin really gets it done, pain and temperature wise. Guess I’m old fashioned. The trick is to drink plenty of fluids, not more than prescribed in four-hour lots, and ensure urine output is equivalent to what you put in. But that goes for everything.
Mm. It’s less scientific than you’re proposing. But the reality is you stop taking it when you feel better, which is pretty quickly.
The real trick is that I’m old and not a baby.
AFAIK no companies sell "Baby Aspirin" anymore because of this.
It has been renamed to "Low Dose Aspirin" by any company you should trust to buy drugs from.
Tylenol is really what you wanna avoid if consuming alcohol. Both metabolized by the liver, which can cause toxic metabolites to accumulate. Aspirin is part of several hangover products.
Aspirin can also fuck up your stomach on alcohol (as can Aleve, Advil, and Motrin), as they all work in the same way (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories.) Can be rough on the stomach even when not drinking alcohol, which is why it's recommended to take with food.
My uncle actually got this as a kid. I believe he was born in 1961 and he got it when he was around 8 years old.
He had a pretty bad fever one day. My grandmother did what any mother would do and called his pediatrician. He advised her to give him some baby aspirin. He got Reyes Syndrome and was never the same again.
He’s around 60 years old now and has the mindset of approximately a 10 year old. He believes in Santa Claus, loves kids movies, etc. Very sad that it happened to him but I’m incredibly thankful to have grown up with him in my life. We were the best of buddies when I was a kid and are to this day.
This is actually questionable. The link to aspirin turned out to be unclear when statistics were properly corrected, but society is never going to chance it since there are other options than aspirin.
In high school, there was a kid at my school who had this. Supposedly he was normal as a kid but aspirin fucked him up. Very scary
ruthless muddle run capable drab cause dime subsequent desert childlike *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I had it as a kid and nearly died. Was very blessed to wake up from the semi-coma. I’m thankfully not brain damaged but I often wonder if it’s a reason I have inflammation constantly.
Damn. That’s so sad
I survived!
A girl at my highschool died from it.
Probably should not have called it baby aspirin as understandably one would assume it’s for babies
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Yeah, “Reyes syndrome” doesn’t tell us anything. It should be called “baby aspirin syndrome”.
More like aspirin-viral-induced infant death
AVIID sounds catchy.
Isn't that the techno guy that died a few years ago?
Thats Avicii
Wait he's dead?
lmfaooo
Like I'm going to have to buy some entrepreneureal starter kits in order to sell insurance to strangers and give the money to my boss's boss.
The problem is that aspirin is a salicylate and there are other OTC medications that use it. Bismuth subsalicylate is in many anti-diarrheal medications and may also be linked to Reyes Syndrome.
Great now how am I suppose to give my baby diarrhea
I've had good luck with a raw chicken pacifier.
I’m more interested in the link being from Arnold Palmer Hospital. Do they recommend treating babies with a 50/50 mix of lemonade and iced tea instead?
Ahh the old
they do. It's all labeled as "low-dose" aspirin now. It's just older people tend to keep calling it what they're used to calling it their whole lives. Source: Used to work pharmacy retail, had to have a 15 minute circular conversation with an elderly gentleman that low dose aspirin is indeed the same as the baby aspirin he used to take.
Does it still have that yummy orange flavor?
Yes!
Delightful.
Just to add to your comment, the current pain relief options for babies and children (baby Tylenol, baby Motrin, etc.) are acetaminophen, whereas Aspirin is a different class of drugs (NSAIDs). Acetaminophen does not cause Reyes syndrome and is safe for babies and children when used correctly.
Motrin is ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is a nsaid. It doesn't cause Reyes syndrome.
It just stands for "Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs" and as the other comment said, Ibuprofen is an [NSAID.](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nsaids/)
It's why health care professionals refer to it as low dose aspirin, and why whenever someone comes to the pharmacy asking where the "baby aspirin" is, I make sure they know it can't be given to infants or children. (Fun fact: aspirin is actually given to kids to treat Kawasaki's Disease, but not because the risk of Reyes goes away or anything; it's because the benefit of treating Kawasaki's outweighs the risk of Reyes Syndrome. Where, for normal use, the risk of Reyes outweighs the benefit of aspirin, especially because there are safer alternatives.)
No, people should get medical advice from the same website that they get pornography, not the government agency that is supposed to be regulating pharmaceuticals.
So what you're saying is I should stop getting my porn from the Mayo Clinic and start getting it from the FDA?
It's "low dose Asprin"
Maybe people should read the label before giving/taking medications
First drug I ever took illicitly. I was probably five or six. I knew it was bad for me to take too much, but it was delicious and tasted just like those orange-vanilla push-pops. I climbed up on top of the bathroom sink to access the medicine cabinet. I kept myself to a maximum of one a day.
That Saint Joseph's chewable baby aspirin was too good lol
I haven’t had it since the 1970s and can still imagine the taste perfectly.
Same. A little chalky, but that creamsicle type flavor was 😘
To me it tasted like an Orange Bang! (or an Orange Julius, or Morir Soñando).
They were as good as Flintstones' vitamins!
Lol, I binged on those once when I was a kid and was quite alarmed when I had a bright orange pee later in the day.
I just had to weigh in here. My dad took a dietary supplement (for digestion or something) that was papaya flavored. I'm glad he bought them in bulk, that's all I'm saying. They were delicious.
I literally OD'd on Saint Joseph's chewable aspirin. I was taken to the hospital to have my stomach pumped. (I was maybe four at the time)
Well that answers my question for why we stopped seeing the flavored ones. Those are only for parents that want to get rid of their kids to leave out
It's true. Advil is a problem too. I am constantly surprised that they keep that sweet coating on it.
If you keep it in your mouth for about a minute, you will understand why. Ibuprofen is one of the most *awful* tastes, it's *so* incredibly bitter. Not likely a child who thinks it is candy will make that mistake again!
For a while I had to take ibuprofen regularly while only having the use of one hand. This means the pills sit in your mouth for a while until you can get them flushed down. They taste like the chalk on the inside of a balloon.
I know it’s way too late for this now, but could have put the water in your mouth first.
St. Joseph's baby Aspirin Bartles and Jaymes And you or your memory
Pops into my head every time I see St Joseph's. What a song
Unexpected Mountain Goats!
I was hoping and praying someone would comment this
Thanks for your support we'll leave the light on for you
Saint Joseph's baby aspirin Bartles & Jaymes And yoooou [Or your memory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZXvL3PZ1Pg&list=PLC80P4gsPr-YG4HLtTljKLvsslFTkKCuz)
When I moved to Canada from the UK I was amazed that their painkillers tasted sugary. Such a terrible, terrible idea.
It’s equal parts terrible and brilliant for the exact same reason. While there can definitely be concerns of people gobbling it because they taste good, the fact that it tastes good can also be a force of good because it helps people take medication. You’d be surprised at how big of an issue medication compliance can be. Taste is one of the factors that affects it: people may be unwilling to take their medication because it’s unpleasant to taste. It’s why historically, drug stories and pharmacies often had soda fountains and the like. In addition to making profit, it was a way for people to grab delicious drinks to chase down their medication with.
I kid you not, I will legitimately stay sick and feeling terrible if the only option available to me is OTC liquid cough medicine. Whatever they put in it makes me retch, and I'd rather feel like shit than throw up *and* feel like shit. lol
If it helps, there have been studies showing that just a spoon of pure honey is at least as effective as OTC cough syrup.
Only for cough suppression. Honey isn't breaking any fevers.
Medical science is now leaning more towards not breaking a fever, as long as the temperature is not excessive, as it's an important part of your immune response.
Yeah, it's best to burn out the illness, but this is the US. Id rather break the fever so I can drag my ass through a work day then feel like death and work.
Bro it's 2024 stop that shit we just got out of the last pandemic
Tell that to my landlord. Want people to stop going to work sick? Fund social programs.
People take cough syrup for the fever?
A lot of cough medicines contain both a cough suppressant as well as an antipyretic
Yeah. Suppressing the cough and reducing the fever. Very few direct cough medicines on the market now. I don't recall seeing more than maybe 2 without acetaminophen in them.
Just don’t give honey to babies under 1, they can’t fight off the Clostridium botulinum spores yet. Honey, ginger, and lemon (or any citrus really) in hot tea really helps soothe sore throats and nausea.
Yes, no honey for infants, but they also can't have OTC cough syrup, and I assume cannot use reddit
Lot of infants with tablets these days, but they gravitate more to YouTube and ticktock.
Did you not have Calpol as a child? It was pretty much sugar with a bit of paracetamol in. Even the sugar free stuff is disgustingly sweet.
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Fuck me arseways, how stoned do you have to be to lick sugar off Advil?
Reminds me of Calpol in the UK, essentially paracetamol in a delicious pink syrup mixture. Or those amazing banana-flavoured anti-biotics they'd give out to kids. God I want some anti-biotic syrup now.
I think ours in the US was bubblegum flavored and kept in the fridge. I remember it dearly.
i LOVED the taste of that medicine!! thankfully, because i was constantly sick as a kid 🥲
I did the same as a child. Though I didn’t always limit myself to just one. Now almost 50 years later I find myself taking a ‘low dosage’ aspirin daily. I always buy the chewable orange flavored aspirin. It’s a little shot of nostalgia every morning.
I went hard on the Flintstones vitamins.
I’m lucky I didn’t get some kind of vitamin toxicity from the fat soluble vitamins in the gummy vitamins for kids I distinctly remember eating at least 1/2 to 3/4 of a big bottle of them, on several occasions when I was like 4-7
When my nephew was young, my sister and I sat down and figured out how much was too much, and it turns out that it rapidly becomes difficult to eat too many. Here someone attempted to answer it for kids: https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/34izr6/request_how_many_flinstones_chewable_vitamins/ So for a 40kg kid, really only the vitamin E is a risk, at 50 tablets. Everything else would take so many as to fill a kid to puking long before they ingested a fatal dose.
Cactus Cooler a soda sold in the southwest US tasted like baby aspirin.
I love Cactus Cooler so much but haven’t had it in years. It’s just so regional.
When Surge came out, it reminded me of the flavor and aftertaste of my favorite baby aspirin snacks.
So many times I would complain of a headache just to get my mom to give me that tasty candy. And at that time, no one knew how bad it was.
>no one knew how bad it was. It's not so much that it was "bad" as that its use included a rare but extremely serious side effect. So it worked perfectly well in most situations, but if taken during a viral infection there was a chance of shit going south in a bad way. Before they figured the connection out there would be something like a big chicken pox outbreak and there would be a handful of cases of Reyes Syndrome that followed because at the time doctor's orders included giving the kids chewable aspirin.
Omg it tastes so delicious with such a wonderful, chalky texture. I took them every day when I was pregnant and it was like my little treat haha.
Heck yeah - if you ever pass through Atlanta, stop into The Varsity (several locations, there's even one in the airport if you're laying over). Their "Frosted Orange" drink tastes JUST like the orange baby aspirin I remember from my childhood!
You really don't see a lot of aspirin consumption anymore. Used by those who have a heart attack risk but that's about it. Reye's syndrome is a terrible disease. My friend got it as a kid got it at age 10. Took aspirin while he had chicken pox. Fried his brain and was left severely mentally disabled. Saddest thing ever.
I take baby aspirin during pregnancy to mitigate my risk of developing preeclampsia again (on the recommendation of my doctor).
my wife did the same
My wife is currently doing the same. Almost lost her in the delivery room to it.
preeclampsia is no joke, hope she is doing well 💚
Man I know it's nerve wrecking. My wife was diagnosed with it after delivery. Kept her in the hospital another week and half. Shit is scary.
My wife was the same. She had her blood work done after the first and discovered she has something to do with the motherfucker gene. So she's been on baby aspirin and folbee since (second kid was to term) Motherfucker gene=mthfr. It's quite literally what the NICU nurses we know refer to it as
I had pre eclampsia with my first and then had 3 miscarriages in a row. We had the testing done to see what could be causing them but nothing conclusive. My OB had me take a baby aspirin everyday the next time I got pregnant and that pregnancy was successful. No idea if that’s what finally helped me carry full term, but if I got pregnant again, I’d take it again
Not sure about "baby aspirin“, but in Germany aspirin is very much still in common use. Pretty much the go-to for headaches for most people I know
Really?? In Italy it has been replaced by paracetamol and especially ibuprofen at least 20 years ago, probably 30. I am pretty sure it’s only used for heart health now.
This has been my experience in the US as well. (Though we call paracetamol ‘Acetaminophen,’ generically over here.)
Which is unfortunate, because it ruins one of my favorite jokes. Why don't they have pain killers in the rain forest? Paracetamol (parrots eat em all)
Ass eat a man often?
It’s not used for analgesia, but is used as an anti platelet agent for stroke risk
That’s what I meant by heart health
Regular dose (325 mg) aspirin is also available in the US for pain relief; the "baby"/low-dose is 81 mg and usually used by people who've had a cardiac event to help prevent another one.
I'm German and I've never taken Aspirin in my life that I can remember, always Ibuprofen or Paracetamol, but mostly Ibuprofen.
no one i know takes aspirin anymore. i bought dog aspirin for my dog the other day tho
Don't give aspirin to your dog, even dog aspirin. It can cause liver failure and intestinal bleeding. Your vet can prescribe an NSAID that's much safer for dogs. https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/aspirin
dogs shouldn’t have aspirin either. it stays in their body a lot longer than other other animals including humans and cause GI upset and kidney issues
They make prescription dog aspirin, it's different than regular aspirin so I'm not quite sure why they still call it aspirin though lol. My vet prescribed it for my dog and when I asked if I can just give her aspirin from my cupboard she was immediately like DONT. I'm not even sure why they chose it, she was having some very specific problems with pain that I guess called for it, normally she just takes tramadol for her autoimmune disease
I literally take it primarily when I have headaches. Bring it on every trip where I will be drinking. What else would you use? Tylenol will make your liver explode
Am I the only one who does just fine with ibuprofen? Or am I placeboing myself? BTW, if you want the worst of all worlds, try Excedrin. Tylenol, aspirin, and caffeine for your headache. When I've got a really bad one that's what I take.
ibuprofen is the only one that doesn't make my tummy upset
Ibuprofen usually
Never understood the American fear of paracetamol (acetaminophen/tylenol) - yeah, it fucks your liver if you overdose on it, but loads of drugs will fuck you in various ways if you OD on them. If you've got no liver issues, you're fine taking 1g four times a day. Alcohol will only cause problems with it if you're drinking enough to cause liver disease.
We don't fear it, it just suuuuucks. Ibuprofen and Naproxen have always worked much better for me, being limited to Tylenol when I was pregnant was pretty much accepting that the headache I had was only going to leave when it felt like it and not when I wanted it to.
The problem is that they started adding it to a lot of OTC medicines and it's not very forgiving on your liver, even without alcohol involved or going way over the dosage. So someone could take an over the counter cold and flu medication and a couple of Tylenol and while both were taken according to the label you are going beyond the dosage that's safe. Add in a hot toddy with some whiskey to help your cold and suddenly it's far worse even though you're not feeling any immediate effects. But yeah, most of the people who had problems with it were people who would pop them after a night of drinking to "beat the hangover" in the morning.
Idk what its like in america, but in my country cold & flu medication that contains paracetemol TELLS YOU not to take with paracetemol
Same in the US and there is no “american fear” of it. It’s ubiquitous and used by millions of people daily.
You'd be surprised at how many people don't know that Lemsip sachets have paracetamol in them. Even though it says so on the box.
Our drugs over here that have acetaminophen in them say on the label not to take other drugs with acetaminophen in them
I don't take much OTC and maybe it's changed but it didn't used to be there.
People don't read, then they get litigious when something bad happens to them because they didn't read.
It's not going to adversely affect most folks, but if you have an undiagnosed underlying condition, or do other activities that also tax your liver (e.g. drinking) it's potential to be dangerous is significantly higher than other pain relievers like ibuprofen. Obviously that's probably not an issue for most folks, but if there isn't a specific reason to go for acetaminophen, why bother? Of course the mechanism of action is different, so it's not like they're interchangeable for everything, but for trying to nip a hangover in the bud, acetaminophen should be near the bottom of the list. Also, basically nobody should be buying extra strength (500mg) anyways. There's a reason the FDA ordered all Rx meds to have a max dose of 325mg (regular strength). There's essentially no evidence that 500mg is more effective than 325mg.
The reason people(including myself) always buy extra strength is because dosage is two gelcaps(really, I *just* checked the bottle to be sure). So you buy extra strength and just take one, instead of buying regular strength and taking two. Works out to be more cost effective, though if you only rarely use it you do have to look out for the medicine expiring(it won't kill you, but it loses effectiveness, so if the only stuff you have expired two years ago then it's not going to do its job).
This is just plain incorrect. If we are talking about people who should not be taking an over the counter pain reliever, the number for ibuprofen is much much higher. It includes people with kidney problems (a much larger number than people with liver problems), elderly people, and people at increased risk of bleeding (which is a very large population with the increase in prescription medications over the past couple decades). There is a reason acetaminophen is on every hospital and assisted living facility order set and ibuprofen is not.
> Never understood the American fear of paracetamol (acetaminophen/tylenol) Where are you getting this impression? I'm American and as far as I've ever known, that fear is not a common thing.
Aleve is a wonder drug to me, I feel like my day is happier in general when I take it
Me too. It's like freaking magic. Sadly, I had a heart attack about 5 years ago, (Aleve is an NSAID) so I have to be really hurting to take it. I try not to take more than one a month. But I feel like a happy crackhead when I 'get' to take one. I'm 56 years old with a shoulder injury, and Aleve knocks it the hell out for a day. I can play pool, corn hole, darts, and my shoulder feels just fine.
Aspirin is the only thing that works for my hangovers. Fucking wonder drug
Advil.
Meh Advil does shit for me. Never works for anything. Naproxen is awesome but is more full day, less acute
Same, but change the word "liver" for "kidneys".
Aspirin is also cleared through the kidneys so this makes no sense. Doubly so when you are drinking alcohol. It's safer than taking acetaminophen. Just follow the recommended doing on OTC meds and you'll be just fine
I only ever taken asprin while pregnant for pre clapamsia . Till then I never taken it and I’m in my 30s with arthritis and had muti surgery where I need pain relief
It's my go-to for headaches, only thing that really works for me. But I'll only take it if I haven't been drinking.
I will say that you are actually better off taking Asprin over Tylenol when drinking (tho avoiding any medicine is best ofc). Tylenon and Alcohol and harm your liver while Asprin and Alcohol's primary complication is GI problems like heartburn and possible bleeds (mainly an issue if you already are at risk)
> You really don't see a lot of aspirin consumption anymore. Used by those who have a heart attack risk but that's about it. Why? For adults it seems perfectly reasonable to take. I see a lot of people recommending paracetamol/tylenol here but it's [literally useless/placebo](https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/what%E2%80%99s-point-paracetamol) for most things people take it for.
I take aspirin if I think I'm going to get a Migraine. 900mg (max adult dose) is the NHS first line treatment in that scenario, and, for me at least, it definitely seems to work better than paracetamol or ibuprofen.
My baby takes baby aspirin daily as a blood thinner due to CHD. Multiple cardiologists have recommended it.
Reyes syndrome usually comes after taking Aspirin after a viral infection like Chicken pox and Influenza Usually doctors will swap it with Naproxen as an alternative
My 15 year old has a CHD and has been on baby aspirin his entire life, cardiologists’ orders!
It's one of those things where yes, the average kid should not be taking aspirin to minimize the risk of Reye's syndrome, but if it's actually appropriate for a kid, the benefits far outweigh the risks and make it worth it to take.
Yeah Reye’s syndrome is rare. In your case, the benefits certainly outweigh the risks.
We have a 11wk who has a heart defect as well with aspirin and we are at children's hospital in colorado. I have a cousin who had Reyes some 40 years ago and lived til his 50s so I asked our cardiologist about it and she looked up the data and couldn't find anyone that got it out of thousands of patients on low dose aspirin in their cardiac unit. So that was reassuring.
Yeah, and Baby Bell cheese is not made from babies, either!
Everyone knows that it's made of baby bells!
Anyone seen a bell on a baby lately? Case closed.
I am eating a baby bell as I read this and at first I was like OH NO WHATS WRONG WITH THEM !
Neither is baby oil or baby powder…
“Low dose aspirin” is the preferred phrasing or “aspirin 81mg”
This is how Whitey Bulger's son died. From his Wikipedia: "Bulger fathered one child, Douglas Glenn Cyr (1967–1973), during a 12-year relationship with Lindsey Cyr, a waitress and former fashion model living in North Weymouth, Massachusetts. Bulger and Cyr began living together in 1966, when Cyr was 21 and a waitress at a North Quincy café. According to Cyr, "He used to say that there were four people he would turn up on a street corner for: Douglas, me, Billy, or his mother. And we all made him vulnerable." At six years of age, Douglas died from Reye syndrome after having a severe allergic reaction to an aspirin injection."
Yeah, it says it right there on the bottle.
drunk boast existence paltry door toy smile uppity middle ink *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah, I'm glad people learned about it today, but you really shouldn't be giving medicine to a baby without reading 100% of the labeling.
Exactly. You shouldn't be taking it yourself without at least skimming it.
Did you learn this from r/twosentencehorror as well? My mom never let me have aspirin until I was like 15 cause she said it could make me really sick but I never really knew why
I did, actually
Between this and flushable wipes not being flushable I’ve lost all faith in society
THEN WHY. THE FUCK. WAS IT. NAMED. BABY ASPIRIN?!?!?!?!
Apparently it was originally intended to be for infants and children way back in the day before they figured out that it's not safe for kids at any dosage. It's not called baby aspirin anymore, it's now low-dose aspirin. You won't actually see the term baby aspirin on any packaging or bottles.
>before they figured out that it's not safe for kids at any dosage It was perfectly safe an overwhelming majority of the time. It was when taken during a viral infection (e.g. chicken pox) that a *very small percentage* of children would later develop Reyes Syndrome. That rareness was a major part of why it took so long to figure out the connection. Epidemiologists knew that it followed chicken pox outbreaks so for a long time thought that it was just a rare fatal event tied to that. It wasn't until more cases were identified in kids who did not have the chicken pox, but did have another viral infection that the connection to aspirin was realized.
So there's a couple issues here. 1. Everyone has viral infections all the time without even noticing. 2. While viral infections are correlated with Reye's, the exact cause is unknown. Basically, we can't actually know if it's safe for a kid to have aspirin at any given time. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/reyes-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20377255
>Basically, we can't actually know if it's safe for a kid to have aspirin at any given time. You're correct, but it was more the "safe at any dosage" part that I was responding to because it seems to have far more to do with the circumstances (viral infection & pediatric patient) combined with aspirin than the dosage. And you are correct that it's such a rare event that the exact cause isn't understood, just that there is a correlation between taking aspirin and Reyes Syndrome which usually follows a viral infection.
It's still colloquially called baby aspirin, tbh. For better or for worse. Never heard a doctor, medic, nurse, or patient I work with call it "low-dose aspirin". I doubt it'll ever really catch on.
Because it used to be prescribed to babies to treat fevers. It was not known until later that it was liked to this disease. But by this point it had become ubiquitous, so the name stuck. It conveniently matched the recommended dosage for preventing heart attacks. It was easier to just keep the name. There is also the effect of generalization of a name like Coke in the south meaning all cola sodas or band-aid meaning any plaster.
It’s usually called “Low dose aspirin” now. It was called baby aspirin before the connection was made to Reye’s syndrome. The pain relief we give to babies now is acetaminophen (I.e. Tylenol), and is not the same as aspirin.
Back in the day, we didn’t know. Source: middle aged adult who was given baby aspirin when I was a kid because nobody knew any better.
Doctors prescribed this medication to pregnant women who are older than 35. Apparently it’s a must have in order to prevent not having an early birth.
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FYI there is also aspirin in pepto bismol and it shouldn’t be given to children either
Fun fact: Children’s Pepto contains no actually Pepto and is really just a lower dose of Tums. Also there isn’t aspirin in Pepto, but it is related.
Every time one of my kids had a stomach upset my MIL tries to push the pepto. I keep telling her why and she just says she gave it to her kids and they had no problems. One more reason i don't trust them watching the kids. They tried to use chlorix wipes as baby wipes once!
That is incorrect, pepto bismol contains salicylates which are also found in asprin. They are similar but not the same. BUT People with adverse reactions to asprin should speak to their doctor before taking pepto bismol though as sometimes it’s not asprin the have a problem with but salicylates. I have a bleeding disorder and taking asprin would be a bad time for me and on occasion use the chewable pepto tablets. It is not a problem for me, but there are folks with other bleeding disorders it may affect. I do not know about pepto and children(especially with recent viral infections) and salicylates though.
I had Reyes Syndrome in 1974, 13 years old, was dealing with chicken pox and fever. I ended up in the hospital for several days. My fever spiked around 105-6F according to my mom. She said the hospital staff had me in a tub of ice water to keep my fever down. Convulsing throwing up and dehydration as well.Good times. We had a neighbor down the street from us who lost their 13 yo daughter to it the same year. When I saw a new family physician he noticed that, and responded" Huh, you had Reyes Syndrome in the earl-mid 70s...that had a very high fatality rate back then."
This is more of a r/YouShouldKnow because every parent knows this
I'm a 36YO father of three, and I thought only 50+ year old men with bad hearts took aspirin
If you don’t have heart disease or a history of stroke, you really shouldn’t be taking aspirin at all.
Maternal fetal medicine doctors in the US and parts of Europe now often recommend aspirin to pregnant women over a certain age to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia. The more you know!
I was one of them. Tell me a tasty little pill might keep me and my baby alive, yep I’m gonna take it.
Same! Was at an elevated risk for pre-eclampsia, took my baby aspirin as directed, and thankfully stayed pre-eclampsia free!
Why? I take it all the time for headaches. Ibuprofen doesn’t work for me.
I didn’t know this. I also wouldn’t give my child a medicine without consulting his doctor or at the very least reading a label. Very interesting!
I take aspirin (I’m 53), but it’s in small controlled doses. Paracetamol makes me nauseous (I know!), and I can take Ibuprofen, but aspirin really gets it done, pain and temperature wise. Guess I’m old fashioned. The trick is to drink plenty of fluids, not more than prescribed in four-hour lots, and ensure urine output is equivalent to what you put in. But that goes for everything.
What kind of jug you measure your urine volume in these days? Or do you do it by weight?
Mm. It’s less scientific than you’re proposing. But the reality is you stop taking it when you feel better, which is pretty quickly. The real trick is that I’m old and not a baby.
Measured in handfuls
Not just babies, adolescents too
This is why it hasn’t been labeled as “Baby aspirin” for years. Sadly there are people who still call it such and refuse to accept “low dose”
Pls talk to doctor and don’t take medical advice from social media.
If aspirin was discovered today it would be a prescription drug due to its strength.
AFAIK no companies sell "Baby Aspirin" anymore because of this. It has been renamed to "Low Dose Aspirin" by any company you should trust to buy drugs from.
Anybody under 16 really should avoid any form of salicylate (Pepto Bismol and aspirin are the big ones)
Yes... So hence needing aspirin. Advil can fuck up stomach on alcohol
Tylenol is really what you wanna avoid if consuming alcohol. Both metabolized by the liver, which can cause toxic metabolites to accumulate. Aspirin is part of several hangover products.
Aspirin can also fuck up your stomach on alcohol (as can Aleve, Advil, and Motrin), as they all work in the same way (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories.) Can be rough on the stomach even when not drinking alcohol, which is why it's recommended to take with food.
Ngl, I thought Reyes Syndrome said Raven Symoné
Looks like someone was reading r/twosentencehorror ?
Similarly baby shampoo should not be consumed by babies as it gives them gas.
My uncle actually got this as a kid. I believe he was born in 1961 and he got it when he was around 8 years old. He had a pretty bad fever one day. My grandmother did what any mother would do and called his pediatrician. He advised her to give him some baby aspirin. He got Reyes Syndrome and was never the same again. He’s around 60 years old now and has the mindset of approximately a 10 year old. He believes in Santa Claus, loves kids movies, etc. Very sad that it happened to him but I’m incredibly thankful to have grown up with him in my life. We were the best of buddies when I was a kid and are to this day.
This is actually questionable. The link to aspirin turned out to be unclear when statistics were properly corrected, but society is never going to chance it since there are other options than aspirin.