Taking drugs in work, the only way to make it through the day (Paracetamol)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Paracetamol
Date:	29/07/09 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stopped what was threatening to be a crippling headache

Disadvantages: Doesn't aleviate the fact I'm working with inconsiderate idiots on the whole

Working (for now anyway) in a call centre seems to leave me with frequent headaches on an almost daily basis. The combination of phones, over abundance of noises, the wasteful background conversations, the noise of people working, the poor quality of static on a high majority of calls, the ear bursting beeps of some answer machines. They all add up and often cause my head to be a throbbing mass of pain, like I'd drank too many the previous night, but with out the enjoyment of having the good times of drink.

So today, looking for a cure to one of the jobs many inconveniences I decided to try paracetamol at work, hoping to dumb at least the physical pain of working there. Hoping to disarm the bombardment of the unremitting wall of noise, try and counteract the constant uproar of pain inducing garbage. The idea of hearing a pin drop in our office is only feasible if the pin dropped, point first into someone's eye. What is even worse is that office gets louder when fewer people are working, with people perpetually talking over the top of each other trying to make their words the ones that lead the office choir of the tuneless din. A crescendo of vocals blurred deep in a midst of each other, as private conversations about ebay or sex become cross office yelling contests. Headaches quickly become migraines to the weary so the need for effective pain relief is at a premium and as I hope your aware, a necessity.

So onto the possible miracle cure, today purchased in a 16 caplet (the word they used) pack from B & M for 19p. They contain 500mg of paracetamol, and hopefully the white pills would be my silver bullets to stop one of the many agonies of the place of work I go to. As is often a case, this review was actually written (almost in it's entirety) at my seat at work, ironically I'm meant to be collecting credit card repayments but I'm spending more time writing reviews. This is mentioned here as it explains the rather odd looking break in the middle of the review.

The instructions on the back of the box declares that those under 6 shouldn't take the medication, those between 6 and 12 can take ½ to 1 pill in a dose and those above 12 can take 1-2 pills at a time. There should be no more than 4 doses every 24 hours, so people shouldn't take more than 8 in a day. The first dose was taken around 17:05 as I armed myself with 2 of them, hoping they wouldn't be a couple of white elephants, as lets be honest, if they failed in stopping the pain, they may as well have been sweets I was taking, at least they'd have tasted better.
The pills claim to be easy to swallow was a little bit of bending the truth, they weren't "difficult" to swallow, but in the past the "pills" (little circles) made for much easier swallowing than these ones with were more of a "long" variety. We all know swallowing long things is a set up line for so many jokes, but folks, you can insert your own...

This is the part where the review goes a little odd kilter, as I decided rather than wait to see if the pills work, it's be a better idea to jot down any important things from the leaflet that came with them:
Don't take if allergic to paracetamol (I'd have assumed this was obvious, but with warnings on goods now a days...)
Talk to your doctor if your on any other medication, pregnant or breastfeeding.
E223 (Sodium Metabisulphite) is contained in the pill I had, this can cause allergic reactions, which can include the wonderfully named (but undoubtedly painful) bronchospasms (narrowing of the wind pipe)
Finally abuse of the medication can lead to severe and long term liver damage.

So about 40 minutes later I re-opened my note book and finished the review, asking first the question of whether or not it worked. And I'd go with a yes, thought the cacophony of chaotic rumbles had oddly become subdued, the medication had calmed my head and no longer was it throbbing to the combined racket. Oddly however (and probably unconnected) my right thumb started to sting like some crazy wasp had stung it...coincidence?

Summary: Some pains can't be helped, for the rest use paracetamol