SO WHAT ARE TARGETED PAINKILLERS AND DO THEY WORK?
Consumer watchdog Which? investigates targeted painkillers.
Targeted
painkillers? You might think that Nurofen Migraine Pain and Nurofen
Tension Headache caplets would target your migraine and tension
headaches respectively, but you'd be wrong: ibuprofen can't target pain
in specific body parts.
The
products (Nurofen Migraine Pain and Tension Headache) are actually
exactly the same as each other and – available until recently – Nurofen
Express caplets (342mg of fast-acting ibuprofen lysine).
The
latter has now been superseded by Nurofen Express 256mg sodium
ibuprofen, but all three still contain a 200mg dose of the active
ingredient ibuprofen, plus a type of salt to speed up absorption.
One
of our experts said: 'It's a waste of money to buy so-called targeted
painkillers, and potentially dangerous as you might be misled into
taking a double dose, thinking that they're different medicines.'
Of
course, most leading pharmacies and supermarkets also sell generic
versions of fast-acting ibuprofen, at as little as a third of the cost
per tablet of Nurofen. They're not identical to the Nurofen tablets –
even though the active ingredients are the same (342mg ibuprofen lysine)
– but they're often identical to each other once you look past the
brand, packaging claims and prices.
We
found 14 products, some shown below, that are all identical to each
other, ranging from 8p a tablet at Wilko to 20p per tablet at Boots and
Superdrug. They are variously sold as 'migraine relief', 'period pain
relief', 'express pain relief' and 'rapid pain relief, but are actually
made at the same production site (labs) to exactly the same formulation.
If
you examine the fine print, you'll find all these products carry the
same marketing authorisation (product licence/PL) number. This means
they are the same, but the licence allows it to be sold under different
names.
You
can ignore targeted marketing if you're clear you're taking the right
ingredient and dose: a man taking Feminax Express – marketed for period
pain – will simply be getting 342mg of ibuprofen lysine.
Source: Which?
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