I have a man cold and taking my usual bowl of chicken soup washed down with a Lemsip Max but now I’m thinking… if the main ingrediant of a Lemsip is paracetamol, why don’t I just have a paracetamol? It’d cost alot less.

Whats the point of a Lemsip other than the paracetamol?

Thank you.

Now that you’ve read this, you now have a cold sorry thats just how this one works.

  • @Substance_PEnglish
    13•1 year ago

    In my country Lemsip Max Cold and Flu Capsules contain a few other ingredients, I’m not sure if they are the same with yours. They say they contain a combination of paracetamol, phenylephrine hydrochloride, and caffeine. I think that the combo helps with congestion as well, and obviously if it has caffeine, so it’ll give you a buzz (never in a great way in my opinion) - Basic Paracetamol works for the pain and fever part. It is commonly used to alleviate symptoms such as headache, muscle aches, sore throat, and fever.

    Hope you get better soon!

    • kirklennon
      10•1 year ago

      They say they contain a combination of paracetamol, phenylephrine hydrochloride, and caffeine.

      Incidentally, the US FDA has just completed updated studies on phenylephrine, more rigorous than when it was first introduced, and determined that when taken orally it is fully metabolized before it makes it to the sinuses and is completely ineffective. It’s going to disappear from shelves soon.

      • @sploosh
        9•1 year ago

        Which is something anyone who needed psuedoephedrine but got phenylephrine could have told them decades ago.

      • Clegko
        2•1 year ago

        ~~But they also found that phenylephrine works amazingly well when used as a nasal spray, which they didn’t quite know before. ~~

        Incorrect, see comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/4577725

        • kirklennon
          5•1 year ago

          Do you have a source for that? My understanding is that the recent review looked only at oral usage and made no determination on its efficacy as a nasal spray.

          • Clegko
            3•1 year ago

            I recall reading it somewhere when the news was first coming out that it was useless as an oral medicine- lemme see if I can find it again.

            Edit: I musta misread whatever news article it was - I just skimmed the actual release from the FDA and don’t really mention the nose spray route at all. https://www.fda.gov/media/171972/download

      • @Substance_P
        2•1 year ago

        Good to know and yes I’ve been seeing reports on this.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•1 year ago

      I may be wrong, but doesn’t caffeine have actual benefits when taken with medical drugs? I always thought it gave them a bit of extra power. Well, maybe not directly giving them power, but like helping them be more efficient.