Read the Label
Tylenol® Overdose Could Damage the Liver
This is the time of year parents often reach for over-thecounter medicines to find relief for children suffering from colds and fevers.
But before you start giving spoonfuls of medicine, it’s important to make sure you’re not accidentally overdosing. Taking more than the recommended dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol®) could lead to significant liver damage. Serious overdoses can cause acute liver failure, which can be deadly.
While pediatricians value Tylenol® as a fever-reducing medicine, they caution parents against accidentally giving too much.
“Parents will separately pick up an over-the-counter cold medicine and Tylenol® and not realize that if they give both to their child, they’re actually doubling up on the medication,” says Mike Leonis, MD, PhD, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “So they’ve got to be really careful to read the labels of all medications they give to their children for the presence of acetaminophen.”
