What the Hell Wednesday: Tylenol

I was playing Chicken with Moxie's fever last week, waiting for it to rise above 102 to get worried. I try not to medicate, trusting my children's healthy bodies, good nutrition, and occasionally supportive homeopathics to get us through the minor colds and flu bugs. But at night I worry more-- what if I sleep through the side effects of a dangerously high fever? Here are the side effects of a dangerously high fever I'm looking for:
*extreme lethargy and difficulty rousing
*difficulty breathing or odd breathing (shallow and fast or heaving in the diaphragm)
*dehydration (sunken spots on the soft spots of the head, no urination, no tears)
*seizures
*vomiting and diarrhea
*guarding of the abdomen--tummy is sensitive to the touch

Some of these are no more a problem at night than during the day-- I'd probably wake up if Moxie started to vomit on me. But lethargy?

So I tend to medicate with Tylenol at night, but I try not to medicate normally. I wait it out as long as I can, daring the fever to go over my comfort zone before I touch the medication. You might ask, why? Why not medicate for comfort and convenience? After all, having a miserable baby to tend all day is no picnic. The first reason is, our bodies punch us into fever for a reason. Fevers make the body inhospitable to bugs. If we don't allow the body to use its natural defense, how can it rid itself of the bugs?

The other answer is, Tylenol is evil. Oops, did I say evil? I meant....well, yeah, I meant evil. See, tylenol is metastasized (read: cleared) out of the body through the liver by binding to a powerful antioxidant called glutathione. Glutathione "plays an important role in antioxidant defense...Glutathione deficiency contributes to oxidative stress, which plays a key role in aging and the pathogenesis of many diseases including seizures, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, liver disease, cancer...." So basically, when you take Tylenol because you're sick, the tylenol depletes your body of it's ability to keep you from getting sick. And it ages you. Which is kind of funny-- everybody is looking for a magic pill to keep them young, meanwhile popping a pill that makes them old. Ha ha, mmm, sigh.

But it's hard to find the information about this. I want to put links for this information, but I'm finding it in hard to read and digest medical texts or doctor blogs. Here is one fact sheet that spells out the dangers of Tylenol, but often the discussion is about toxic overloads, rather than damage caused by regular doses. Also, liver corruption directly caused by tylenol use is downplayed or not discussed in most texts, although I did find it here, citing tylenol as the #1 cause of liver failure. Number ONE! I guess I can keep drinking my gin and tonics-- just cut back on the morning after meds.

And look, you can't avoid medicating the kids sometimes. The night I was watching Moxie's fever, I lost my game of Chicken. The fever won. I medicated at one am when her temperature got to 102.3. I think we just need to have all the information before using a medication so we can make a good decision for our long-term health. And the pharmaceutical companies aren't going to give us that information, the FDA apparently isn't concerned, and we get lulled into believing that 'safe' is the same as not harmful to our health rather than the FDA's true meaning: approved over the counter medications won't kill most people if used within recommended dosage. A friend of mine medicates when her kids grimace, just in case they might have an ache. Why would it be over the counter if it wasn't safe, she asks. Good question.

My next question is: what's up with the red dye #40 in the children's liquid Tylenol? Because I promise my kids don't give a shit what color the drug is when they take it. The corn syrup makes sure of that.