Excedrin

[krause1515]

My husband is addicted to Excedrin.  He now gets diarrhea a few nights a week and when he doesn't take it he says he gets an unbearable headache/migraine.  He says he can't quit because the headache is too unbearable.  So instead he just pops immodium to help the diarrhea.  How can he quit this?

[Carrie76]

I am by no means, no expert, but it sounds to me like if he really is addicted to it, then just maybe his body has relied on the excedrine for so long to keep headaches away, that when he doesnt take it, it throws his body automatically into a headache cause his body doesnt know what to do without it. The only cure for that is just time. he will have to quite taking the excedrine, and after awhile, the headaches will go away, cause the headaches are only from his body trying to rebel against not having the excedrine. Hope that this is some help!:)

[High Noon]

How many Excedrin pills does he take each day?
If he is taking the extra strength that's 500mg - 250 acetominophene, 250 aspirin and 50 caffeine in every table. A lot of those are no good for your stomach, liver and/or kidneys. The diarrhea may be suggestive of the long term affects of these.

He should see a doctor to discuss the symptons and find out other options for migraine relief.
In addition maybe your husband should have a couple of tests to rule out anthying serious that can be causing the headaches.

Best of luck.

[Bridget123]

I had to wean off of excedrin when I found out I was pregnant, that is also when I found out that excedrin is addictive.  After suffering for a few days with killer headaches, pain that made me vomit, my MD said I could take motrin- but I am not sure your hubbys stomach could handle motrin.  I was able to wean off completly with motrin and coffee, then off the motrin and coffee.  I had never taken a sick day from any job until that episode.  I took two days off plus a weekend and feared for my childs safty.  He should talk to his doc about the rebound headaches, take a few days off and sleep, can he take OTC sleeping pills to help the withdraw happen while he sleeps all day, is that okay to do?  Caffiene is a pain to stop taking in high quantities and along with the tylenol/aspirin/ but not impossible.
Anyway I am sure you would all feel better if he told his MD what was happening, you can go to.  The diarrhea symptoms are scarry b/c of the bad side effects of tylenol/aspirin or it could be to much caffeine.

[hallycover]

I suffer from Migraines and I wake up with them.  Just to get through the day I take one Excedrine Migraine pill, because of my height and weight.  Two of them will send me into a jittery state and trigger a manic episode that can last for a week or so.  
I noticed today, that I didn't take an Excedrine pill and the headache started creeping up on me.  Then I noticed severe stomache cramps, then I noticed I couldn't get up and do anything.  I broke down and took a pill.  Now I have no headache and I feel even.  
This is addiction. I am taking the damn pills just to feel normal.  The cramps went away in about 20 min and no more headache.
I have watched my husband kick heroin addiciton and he went through something similar, but much worse.

[cgcg]

I just had to post this to you.  Get your husband to a Dr. right away! get a full blood chemistry and a PTH test (parathyroid hormone).  i could have written your post.  My husband had same thing and headaches got progressively worse and frequent and lasted longer when he would have real bad ones.  but, always had some type of headche and said the same thing your husband did about having to haave the excedrin pm.

this went on for years.  he went to the er one night at my insistence and his calcium was 10.7. We were never told and were refwerred to nerologist.  he was put on amytryptilye to wean off the daily excedrin and the excedrin PM.

i hope you are still reading because this is serious.  the doctors missed it and eventually my husband ended up critical in the hospital with renal failure.

he had a parathyroid adenoma which caused the increased calcium that caused the renal failure.  he is lucky he lived.

i regret that we were not on top of this.  it was the calcium which were causing the headaches.  he suffered needlessly for years and almost died.

another thing, ALWAYS get copies of dthe blood and other tests and look at them yourself.  if we had done this, we would have seen that his calcium had been rising over the years.  Calcium does not go up or down for no reason!!!!!!  his creatinine was also going up slightly over the years.  this was also not noticed by Drs.  unfortunately we have learned that Drs. do not pay attention to trends in bloodwork.  they only pay attention to when things are "out of range".  unfortunately, a diagnosis may be delayed for years while the person's quality of life and ultimate health is being affected.

this all takes a lot of work and finding the right Dr.

i'm not saying this is necessarily his problem.  but he needs to keep on this.  after my husband had dthe adenoma removed he was able to get off the excedrin and excedrin pm.  it was hard, but doable.  he was definitely addicted to it, but without the underlying medical condition, he was able to do it.

find a doctor who is willing to do the work to find the problem!!!!!!!   use the internet to find the best of the best.  we have found that there is a wide variation in approches between endocrinologists.  don't let anyone blow you off!  trust your gut.  see how you feel after you leave the Dr..  and, even if you think you have good ?Dr.  get a total of THREE opinions.  this will also heelp to judge between the ddoctors.  its hard to know a good thing unless you have an average of bad thing to compare it to.

furthermore, if he doesn't stop taking so much excedrin, that, in and of itself will damage his kidneys and/or liver and who knows what else.  something is definitely going on.  

aalso, when my husband was going through this, since his calcium was up, it affected his judgement.  (as well as other personality, memory, cognition function), so he was not in the best position to guage hiss need for medical care and i should not have deferred to his desire to ignore this.  aso, he did not have the persevence he needed to pursue it.  he just struggled to get through each day.  

does your husband have frequent urination, lack of appetite/nasaueous a lot, bouts of direaheea or constipation,  changes in personality, mental function (desn't seem as quick and sharp as he used to?).  theese symptoms can missed as they come on so gradually that it seems normal for them (happens over years).  this whole situation muust also be affecting your marriage.    

my husband and i are both professional and , in retrospect, cannot believe we handled the situation so poorly.  don't make the same mistakes we did.  he may be addicted, but that's probably not his real problem!

Good luck!!!!!!

[scoobygeorge]

I know this thread is a year old but I do not often come across topics dealing with Excederin addiction. I do not look for topics that often either but this one was a great read.

I too am struggling with this addiction and cannot find a way out.

I take two pills every morning, often around 1 pm and around 5 pm. If I take just one dose a day I consider that a good day.

I drink several cups of coffee a day, and often cold beverages like coke or ice tea.

So I know the caffeine is a significant part of this equation of addiction. However there is more. If I take something else, like just asprin or Tylenol I dont get the mental or physical 'boost' that I seem to expect.

I am 43 years old and wonder how much longer my body can take this. I take other medicine too so that cannot be good. I take Celexa each morning. I try not to pop both meds at the same time, at least I have some common sense there.

I take Prilosec each morning because the Celexa and the aspirin is at work causing heart burn. I have a mild disease called essential tremors, which is sort of like Parkinsons, but not as bad. It affects mostly my hand area, but it has not caused any disabillity. The caffeine makes it worse. I grind my teeth at night, and it probably has resulted in my TMJ symptoms. So you would think there are so good reasons to toss the Excederin and quit caffeine, but I keep rolling along.

Back when I had health insurance (ah another reason to quit this **** eh?) I called my health insurance company to get a referral for an addiction therapist and the representative chuckled when I told him I was addicted to caffeine. I tried out a therapist and she did not take my case seriously. She even drank a coke during one session, and had her teenager in the next room who surely could hear the session.

I hate to go see a regular doctor (no insurance) and put this addiction on file. You see my two main choices for seeing a doctor will mean putting this on record in a database which I really do not want to have happen. I fear my personal information will be readable by prying eyes in my profession if I ever work for one of the two institutions again. There are two extremely large systems in my area that have gobbled up all the clinics and they are all networked. I worked for one of them once and saw how the workers randomly look up each other to see what luggage they carry.

I have tried going off slowly but I loose motivation. I tried cold turkey and felt like I was vomitting my insides out, and would die of something the withdrawl pain was so bad.

So here I am. Addicted with no idea how I will kick this weird addiction. I wonder what I can try to whack this. There is no support groups I have found for this.

[Pweshee]

I am 33 years old, and have been taking Excedrin consistantly for about 6 years now.  I take at least two every morning, and like you, if I only take 2 in the morning, I consider it a "good" day.
Several years ago, I was diagnosed with an ulcer.  The pain was unbelievable.  I was put on Prevacid, and the ulcer eventually healed.  It was obvious that the ulcer was a result of Excedrin (and wine), and instead of stopping then, I continued to take Excedrin along with the Prevacid.
I take between 2-4 per day.  I can't tell you a day when I didn't take any.
I have done the cold turkey quitting, and you almost have to do it over a weekend when you have no plans, because it will knock you on your a$$.
I would suggest trying this:
Take one for the next few days.  I think for me, the addiction is not only physical, but psychological.  Drink a soda, or some coffee or tea when you feel a headache coming on.  
After this, just rely on the soda, tea, or coffee.  Eventually, the caffeine withdrawal will subside.  I am convinced that is the problem with us.
If you want to email me directly, my email address is ***@****.  Maybe we can try doing this together.

[Roarke]

I've been with my girlfriend for 6 months.
She's been taking Excedrin for a year.
When she showed me the bottle near when we first met my thoughts were 'this looks addictive'
Something about the combination of drugs in Excedrin was just wrong to me.
I've taken one or two but no where near a constant basis cause I don't get headaches that much.
I didn't know she was taking 2 in the morning at work, and then every other day she would have a headache and take some more.
It got to be a daily thing recently, and where she would just constantly have a headache. Thankfully she wasn't ramping up the Excedrin too much. I feel bad for not making her quit earlier.
Were both very young, just past 20, she has no health insurance so I'm hoping that after the Excedrin storm we can deal with anything else medical.
I keep looking at the bottle hating Excedrin. I guess its my way of dealing with this. I just hate to see her in so much pain.
Nowhere on the bottle does it say it can be addictive, which I find wrong. I thought we were suppose to be told of this.
The only thing Excedrin has on there site is something about Rebound Headaches under the types of headaches. It says if you take the maximum dosage without relief talk to your Dr.

I also think its funny that Excedrin has all these different products. Its all the same medicine, the same dosage of the same stuff. What is it placebo?
I'd like to produce a medicine that was actually sugar pills, say its aspirin or some new drug with a long name that cures headaches within 15 minutes and see how much it works...
I've used a placebo Vitamin C and some basic hypnosis to cure head pains, chest pains and put someone to sleep. They woke up next morning feeling great. I wish it was that simple with this.
I think I'd rather go through the withdrawal symptoms then see my love do it. I never knew how painful this side of the argument can be.

Good health to all and to all a good holiday season,
Roarke

[flob]

i know this post is old...but i'm going to comment anyway. some people dismiss excedrin addiction entirely. i know it's real...but it's certainly not the same as other addictions. i take 2 ever morning. i used to take much more. the 2 i take every morning are actually taken just to prevent the headache i know will come if i don't take them. there is mild psychological addiction in that i get rather grumpy when i don't take them and i do have a strong desire to take them. i suppose this can be attributed to the caffeine...but the question is that if it's the caffeine alone, then why does large ammounts of coffee not replace the urge? and why do you still get a severe migraine if you do replace it with, say, coffee and some extra strength tylenol. by the ingredients on the back of the excedrine bottle...this should be all that's needed. for some reason it doesn't work, though.

anyway...i don't compare this psychologically to other addictions i've had. it certainly is a mystery, though, as to the physical withdrawal excedrine can produce and why it's effects are so different than what you would get from taking 500mg of tyenol with a couple cups of coffee.

there are certain medications that have vasoconstricters in them...such as midrin...that can be used in place of excedrin to help with withdrawal. the problem is that it causes sleepiness so using it in the morning kind of bites...and in rare cases it can be addicting. but it really is frustrating when people don't take this habbit seriously. there really is something about the formulation that causes psychical and psychological withdrawal symptoms when taken for extended periods of time.

[NorcoQueenoftheUniverse]

Hey.. saw this post and wondering if taking 2 Excedrin PM @ NIGHT is bad???

I am a recovering addict x's 75 days off of a 8-10 Norco habit a day x's 3 years for 2 back surgeries and was told that I could take the Excedrin PM in order to help relieve my sciatic pain and back pain at night so that I could get some sleep...

Am I setting myself up for ANOTHER withdrawl here by taking the Excedrin PM at night??

[bmdad]

That's kind of a tough one to answer Queen. Anything can be somewhat addicting. Have you tried to go without the excedrin pm at night? That would be one way to find out. Also, do you take them every night or only when you need them. I too have had surgery for a herniated disc and still deal with the sciatic problem due to scar tissue hitting the nerve. I know how painful that can me. It's like someone is stabbing me in the hip/butt area with a dagger and moving it around! If you look at the bright side though, you're not taking a opiate. I'm prescribed neurontin for the nerve pain but rarely take it as I've heard it can be addictive also. What out there doesn't have some sort of addictive traits? Coffee, soda, chocolate, etc...the list goes on and on! Some things are just more dangerous than others.

[kathygee]

I have been taking Excedrin for over 10 years daily. Two in the morning and if I feel a headache coming on in the afternoon I will take two more. Yes, Excedrin is so addictive.  I am 41 years old and I am very worried about the side effects.  I am trying to get healthy, losing weight, eating healthy...but when I think about not taking Excedrin it scares me...Crazy I know!!  Even scarrier...what it does to our liver!  I am shocked at how much information there is on the internet about Excedrin and how many people have the same problem as I do...I am seriously considering taking either this weekend or next and trying to detox and get away from this drug!!!!!!  Wish me luck!!!!

[flob]

i would start with cutting the evening dose to 1...then eventually cutting the morning dose to 1...then eventually cutting the evening dose out...then the morning. the rebound headaches that the caffeine causes will probably prevent you from being successful otherwise. whether excedrin is addicting or not...it's a fact that it causes rebound migraines if taken daily...which is what you'll experience when you go off it all at once.

[Ducky40]

I have thought that i may addicted to excedrin also.  I take 2 or 3 at the most a day everyday.  I get these headaches all the time and as soon as I take one, it just goes away, all the pain anywhere.  My boyfriend recently told me that I may be addicted to the caffeine in the excedrin.  I don't know.  Even when I run out, I am always wondering, should I go to the store and get some.  If I don't go, I get a headache and wind up going anyway.