I get the impression that most people don’t put much thought into over the counter medication. Other than the warnings on the bottle about not taking more than a certain number in a certain amount of time, these drugs are considered “safe”. You take them when you have a symptom to relieve, you stop when it goes away. It wasn’t until I started taking prescription medication for my mental illness that I realized how much I take OTC meds for granted.
When I first started taking medication one of my friends looked up as much information on my meds as he could find. One of the things he looked for is other things I could and could not take at the same time. And one of the things on the no-no list was NSAIDs.
An NSAID is a “Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug”. Two of the most common examples of NSAIDs are Aspirin and Ibuprofen (sometimes known as Advil). Wait, Advil? I couldn’t have freaking Advil?? Advil, the pill I take at least ten of every month to function in the face of intense menstrual cramping. Also on this list was Excedrin, since in contains Aspirin, which turned into a huge problem when the very prescription causing all this nonsense started giving me migraines. Great.
As it turns out my friend wasn’t quite correct, and I could, in fact, take NSAID medication as long as I was careful. But the year I went without taking them made me start to appreciate how much society takes them for granted. I’m tired of people asking why someone in pain doesn’t just “take painkillers”, and not just because over the counter painkillers are not strong enough for everyone’s pain. Some people just can’t.
Unruly Bodies 
I was on that boat of taking advil for granted. When I was in high school I started getting terrible tension headaches that I would of course take advil for. Well, I ended up taking so much of it that I would get rebound headaches. Basically, my body got used to a certain amount of advil in my system and gave my headaches when I was withdrawing from it. You really do have to be careful about OTC medication.
I’m probably in the minority here, but I was raised to never rely on medication. I once spent 3 days bed ridden with a migraine before I realized I could take pain meds. Part of it is because my sister has a blood disorder and can only take Tylenol for pain relief, so that’s all we kept in the house. However, Tylenol barely helped for me, so I would basically just go without any pain relief.
I had my tonsils removed and was told to take as little of the Oxy as possible so I would remember I was in pain and wouldn’t get addicted. I was told to not take pain meds if I had a cold cus the fever helps make you better faster and so we could track the temperature of the fever and know when I’m better. The anti medication sentiments ran deep. Ever since I was prescribed anti-depressants I’ve been urged to get off them as soon as possible. Even though I would probably be dead without them
I know pain relievers, laxatives, tums etc. are really helpful, but I still don’t feel comfortable taking them unless it’s an emergency. I’m working on getting used to over-the-counter meds, but when people say “why don’t you take an *OTC drug*” it makes me cringe.