{"id":632605,"date":"2026-09-22T16:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T16:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632605\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T16:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T16:34:09","slug":"paracetamol-overdose-newport-student-makes-miraculous-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632605\/","title":{"rendered":"Paracetamol overdose Newport student makes miraculous recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Office for National Statistics latest figures, external<\/a> show there were 27 deaths registered in Wales in 2024 that mentioned any paracetamol on the death certificate.<\/p>\n

Dr. Will Mackintosh, a GP and chairman of RCGP Cymru Wales, said accidental paracetamol overdose in young people was “a fairly rare occurrence”, but there was a small risk if some inadvertently takes two products containing paracetamol at the same time.<\/p>\n

Mackintosh said pressures placed on young people who are working and studying, in particular, can lead to them taking as much over the counter to “keep going when they’re ill”.<\/p>\n

“Particularly things like viral illnesses, while they’re not serious, it’s important to get enough rest as well,” he added.<\/p>\n

Mackintosh said he felt rest was sometimes “downplayed” in favour of taking medicine that will get you back to normal as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

“For a lot of these illnesses, you need some time to rest and allow them to run their course as well as taking over the counter medicine,” he added.<\/p>\n

He said local community pharmacies are “very cautious” about selling large amounts of medication, so they will “often place restrictions on the amount of paracetamol that can be sold”.<\/p>\n

He said GPs had also become more aware of the risk a paracetamol overdose can have on older patients who, in particular, have low body weight.<\/p>\n

“When these things happen, the symptoms can be very severe and the risks are high, so we want to minimise this to as few cases as possible,” he added.<\/p>\n

He advised people to read the labels carefully and seek advice from your pharmacist or GP, as well as the NHS website.<\/p>\n

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story, information and support can be found at the BBC’s Action Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Office for National Statistics latest figures, external show there were 27 deaths registered in Wales in 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":["post-632605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}