tyrael
Bluelighter
^^^ Good post Mr. Happy! Good explanation and advice!
Good advice however!
This logic is terribly (possibly dangerously) flawed! As Mr. Happy has said, the way you've tried to quantify pain (which is extremely difficult regardless, even in clinical, controlled settings) doesn't work unfortunately. Also comparing it with internal damage (or organs) - the body/pain reflex don't work like that! The body has multiple sensory (afferent) pathways and types of pain (eg, nociceptive of the "normal" pain people think of, neuropathic, phantom, idiopathic, etc), not all are of the same kind and not all are located everywhere!
A simple example; the only "pain sensors" the intestines have are to sense/communicate over/hyper (dys)tension - no sharp pain, nor for heat/burning!
The 4,000mg dose as an upper, maximum daily limit wouldn't have been pull out of thin air! Clinical trials (predominately on rats one would think! lol), LFTs (Liver Function Tests) and the like would have been used to find this dose. Having said this, this amount is not in any sense a strict dosing! There is still bio-variability between one another which might reduce/raise this level, any liver impairment one might have greater affects metabolism/absorption of drugs, and limits such as LD/TD/ED50%'s are extremely non-specific (and often take with a pinch of salt by health professionals - much like BMI in fact! It's an ok measurement to roughly consider when dosing but I wouldn't place my health on it imo! -_- )
Also, tolerance does not build with paracetamol/APAP! If you were to look at it's basic MOA, the metabolic pathway isn't really conducive to the body building a tolerance! (that's not to say it's not unhealthy to take it every day!) I have heard this argument before and my thoughts are I believe the "reduction" in efficacy is in fact psychological - one becomes accustomed to the effects and convinces themselves that - they've been having chronic pain for quite a while, it's not letting up, so I must have to increase my dose! When in reality it's more than likely said pain is not only chronic but server enough that stronger analgesics may possible in need of use?!
Are you safe? .... Don't take more than you 'need'. No reason to get too crazy with it. (advice I personally need to adhere to currently)
Good advice however!

Sounds like the recommended 4,000mg maximum per day to avoid liver damage is a lie
I personally think its bullshit.... Who came up with the 4000mg sweet number? Maybe it really is 4g to hurt your liver but I honestly think your body builds a tolerance to apap.... Why wouldn't it? Hit your thumb with a hammer then do it again and again! After a while you can take more and more pain sooo in my thinking since I started at 4 pills 5/500's and worked my way up to 8 5/500s and then started taking them more frequently and beating on my liver witch is strengthening my shit so maybe my personal number is 15g of apap is safe?? Huh think of that one??!!!
This logic is terribly (possibly dangerously) flawed! As Mr. Happy has said, the way you've tried to quantify pain (which is extremely difficult regardless, even in clinical, controlled settings) doesn't work unfortunately. Also comparing it with internal damage (or organs) - the body/pain reflex don't work like that! The body has multiple sensory (afferent) pathways and types of pain (eg, nociceptive of the "normal" pain people think of, neuropathic, phantom, idiopathic, etc), not all are of the same kind and not all are located everywhere!
A simple example; the only "pain sensors" the intestines have are to sense/communicate over/hyper (dys)tension - no sharp pain, nor for heat/burning!
The 4,000mg dose as an upper, maximum daily limit wouldn't have been pull out of thin air! Clinical trials (predominately on rats one would think! lol), LFTs (Liver Function Tests) and the like would have been used to find this dose. Having said this, this amount is not in any sense a strict dosing! There is still bio-variability between one another which might reduce/raise this level, any liver impairment one might have greater affects metabolism/absorption of drugs, and limits such as LD/TD/ED50%'s are extremely non-specific (and often take with a pinch of salt by health professionals - much like BMI in fact! It's an ok measurement to roughly consider when dosing but I wouldn't place my health on it imo! -_- )
Also, tolerance does not build with paracetamol/APAP! If you were to look at it's basic MOA, the metabolic pathway isn't really conducive to the body building a tolerance! (that's not to say it's not unhealthy to take it every day!) I have heard this argument before and my thoughts are I believe the "reduction" in efficacy is in fact psychological - one becomes accustomed to the effects and convinces themselves that - they've been having chronic pain for quite a while, it's not letting up, so I must have to increase my dose! When in reality it's more than likely said pain is not only chronic but server enough that stronger analgesics may possible in need of use?!