Consumer health basics (13)
- Organ donation: Don't let these 10 myths confuse you
- How to cut your medical costs: Do's and don'ts
- Clinical trials: A chance to try evolving therapies
- see all in Consumer health basics
Alternative medicine (9)
- Hypnosis: Another way to manage pain, kick bad habits
- Complementary and alternative medicine: What is it?
- Alternative medicine: Evaluate claims of treatment success
- see all in Alternative medicine
Medications (5)
- Medication errors: Cut your risk with these tips
- Pain medications: Read the label before you buy
- Buying prescription drugs online: The do's and don'ts
- see all in Medications
Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
continued:
Pain medications: Read the label before you buy
A note about combination products
Combination products, also called combination formulas, contain more than one active ingredient. For example, some pain medicines for migraines contain acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine. Caffeine is used because studies have shown that adding it to aspirin or acetaminophen improves pain relief. Nighttime or PM formulas typically include a sedating drug, such as an antihistamine, to make you drowsy.
If you're taking multiple OTC products, especially if one is a combination product, pay close attention to the list of ingredients. Many contain the same active ingredient. For example, a pain medicine and a cough-cold-fever medicine could both contain acetaminophen. If you took both, you could exceed — maybe by a lot — the recommended maximum dose and be at risk of serious adverse effects.
Read all about it
The information on today's over-the-counter medications is easier to understand than ever. Technical terms such as "contraindications" and "precautions" have been eliminated. So has haphazardly placed safety information and the tiny type.
So there's no excuse for not reading the label before you buy. Also, be sure to check the label — including the expiration date — when you dig something out of your medicine cabinet.
Previous page(2 of 2)
- Medicines in my home: Information for adults on using over-the-counter medicines safely. The Drug Facts label. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/cder/medsinmyhome/MIMH_booklet_adult_label.htm. Accessed Jan. 26, 2009.
- Hagen PT. Mayo Clinic EmbodyHealth Guide to Self-Care. 5th ed. Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; 2006:257-258.
- The best way to use your over-the-counter pain reliever? Seriously. U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration. http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/analgesics/bestWayBrochure.htm. Accessed Jan. 27, 2009.
- OTC Drug Facts label. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/fdac/special/testtubetopatient/otc.html. Accessed Jan. 26, 2009.
- The new Drug Facts label. National Council on Patient Information and Education. http://www.bemedwise.org/label/label.htm. Accessed Jan. 26, 2009.
