Hello Dragonfly. I'm glad that your Granddaughters are coping well. I thank you for the information about what you take for arthritis.
Tylenol is very good at killing the pain, but I will get up on my soap box a bit and talk about the usage of Tylenol vs aspirin especially for those of us taking lithium and or having liver problems . I am not a medical qualified person and I know that there are many reasons not to take aspirin, however if some one is told , don't take it because they are taking lithium and that is the only reason, chances they are being misinformed.
Most doctors and most pharmacists say "don't take aspirin if you take lithium" As aspirin is far more effective at controlling inflammation than Tylenol , aspirin is usually the medication to use. However for some reason most docs and most pharmacists have not read all of the latest studies which shows that aspirin does not affect affect the lithium levels in the average person.
From drugs.com "Most studies have shown that aspirin and other salicylates do not significantly affect the serum concentrations of lithium. In general, no particular precaution should be necessary when lithium is coadministered with salicylates."
Aspirin usually has a better effect on arthritis as aspirin has anti inflammatory effects and Tylenol does not. For those of us with arthritis, we want to keep the inflammation down as well a kill the pain.
Tylenol can be extra ordinarily hard on your liver and over dosing can be very easy. Tylenol's own website shows that we should not take more than 3000 mg per day
https://www.tylenol.com/safety-dosing/usage/dosage-for-adults however as Tylenol arthritis contains 650mg of medication and the recommended maximum dose is 6 pills at 650mg each per day, and that equals 3900 mg per day, I don't understand how they can say it's good to take that much. Even 6 doses of extra strength Tylenol per day maxes a person out at 3000 mg per day and those with impaired livers are told not to take that much, but yet doctors continually say take Tylenol for arthritis!!!
Also as Tylenol is in many other products it is easy to go over the maximum daily dose.
There is nothing wrong with taking tylenol, but according to
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/820200-overview " In the United States, acetaminophen toxicity has replaced viral hepatitis as the most common cause of acute hepatic failure and is the second most common cause of liver failure requiring transplantation."
So if you are taking tylenol 3 times a day you might want to calculate your daily dosage and if near 3000mg, talk to your doctor about it. I'm not recommending either product, I'm just using this chance to tell people just to be extra careful when using tylenol. Take Care. paul m