How not to kill yourself

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Before I even start, let me get this straight: I am not suggesting that anyone should ever kill themselves, or even attempt suicide. This has just come to my mind because it was something I thought everyone knew, but after talking to my partner about it I realise that isn’t the case. Paracetamol is dangerous. It can be bought at almost any chemist, supermarket, or corner shop and it’s very cheap. Many people take it every day for aches and pains or fever. But in spite of that it is still a dangerous drug. Sometimes people feel that they can’t carry on struggling through life any more, or perhaps they just want help, and they decide to take an overdose of some sort. Naturally they use whatever they can get their hands on that they think might be painless. A cocktail of paracetamol and alcohol is easy to obtain. Luckily these people are usually found in time, and rushed off to hospital to have their stomachs pumped. Hopefully their friends and family rally round and they find that life is worth living after all. But if they have taken a lot of paracetamol they may be saved only to find they have irreversible and fatal liver damage and just when they have decided they want to live, they find themselves facing death unless they can get a liver transplant. It’s also possible to overdose on paracetamol by taking too many different cold or flu remedies at once, as many of them contain paracetamol and although they usually carry warnings many people don’t understand the reason why this is important. So just in case anyone even mentions in a jokey sort of way that they feel like taking an overdose, make sure they know this! All rights reserved. © copyright Fleur 2015.