Memory Loss. Seriously. It's happening to me.

I once joked to my wife during COVID I could tell how much older I was getting.

As a kid, I’d check to see if I had my wallet before leaving home. As a teen and in my 20s, I’d check to see if I had my wallet and keys. In my 30s, it was check to see if I had wallet, keys and cellphone. In my late 40s, it was wallet, keys, cellphone, mask.

 

Yup, and I still manage to leave my phone in my car when I walk into work on occasion.

I woke up with a headache this morning. Took two Tylenol, then five minutes later, I could not remember if I had taken them or not. (Oddly enough, now I'm sure I did.)

 

No and thanks for asking. But now they're 10-11 hour days and there is NO let-up ever.

 

My Dad, knock on wood still sharp as a tack at 75, called me a couple years ago and said he thought he might have accidentally taken four Tylenol during his late-afternoon medicine run (i.e. was distracted and opened the Tylenol bottle twice) and asked if he should worry about it. I asked my wife (smarter than me, because of course) and she Googled it and found you'd have to REALLY take a lot of regular or even extra-strength Tylenol at once to worry. And he'd taken the regular Tylenol, of which four pills are basically the equivalent of two extra strength. tl;dr you're fine but you probably knew that by being able to post.

 

I’ve forgotten to put the coffee in a few times in the last year or so. Nothing more disappointing at 5:30 am than pouring your first cup of … hot water. (I have a thermal carafe that is not transparent, so I can’t see it’s not coffee until the brew cycle completes.)

 

I did, but when I couldn't remember I chose not to take more. I didn't think an extra two would be dangerous, but why mess around?

 

My mom tells me all the time, “You can take like 30 Tylenol at once and it’s fine.”

Her rationale being that she got super-high prescription dosage in the hospital once and she was fine.

She also doesn’t seem to remember that I work in public health and KNOW she’s wrong.

 

What's the tipping point number? Legit curious and not for medicinal purposes, I assure you!

 

Provided you’re a healthy adult, 8-12 in a day (meaning 24 hours) is fine.

Important to keep in mind that “fine” basically means any damage you do to your liver likely won’t last very long.

 

Healthline.com article says 650-1000 mg of ancetamenophin every four to six hours for adults is safe. Tylenol tablets range from 325-650 mg.

I suppose four of the big ones could be a concern if it hadn’t been too long since your most recent dosages. Those are recommended to take every eight hours, so if you took two at 8am then four at 8pm, you’d be over the 3k mg. Probably not enough to do much damage, unless you’re doing this every other day.

 

Speaking for this group of former or current journalists, our livers have been through enough.

Leave them be.