Is drinking a bottle of Nyquil fatal?

If you may have overdosed on Acetaminophen, please don't read this article -- call American Association of Poison Control Centers: 1-800-222-1222.)
 
If you are thinking about suicide, this appears to be a painful way to die so trying to induce overdose is not going to take the pain away. Please call 1-800-784-2433 to talk to someone about your feelings.  Comments on this post have been disabled.

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"Acetaminophen overdose is one of the most common poisonings worldwide." (National Institute of Health)

I knew that Acetaminophen was bad in large amounts but I didn't know how bad. Essentially, I couldn't find adequate resources on this topic so I did some research of my own. According to the link, it appears only 8 extra strength pills (500 mg) can cause serious problems and 14 -- untreated -- can kill you. You have about 8 hours after taking them, and then liver failure will kill you in a few days.

This is a big issue for people who get really severe headaches, for elderly folks who forget how many pills they've taken. However, the other group is people who drink a whole bottle of NyQuil either to get the mild alcohol high or to go to sleep.

The NyQuil wikipedia page also has cautions that seem to point to unspecified danger:

"It is essential to avoid excessive amounts of acetaminophen as this may cause damage to the liver. This risk is additive when separate co-ingestion of acetaminophen is used. The normal maximum for acetaminophen per day is 65 mg/kg/24hrs or 4g/day, whichever is less."

However, this doesn't say whether or not drinking a *whole* bottle is a bad idea. However, according to NIH information, doing so appears to be quite harmful. Here's the math:

1. There are 500 mg Acetaminophen per every 15mL in NyQuil (source)
2. A bottle of NyQuil contains 10 oz, which converts to 295.7 mL (source)
3. So there are 9,856 mL of Acetaminophen in every bottle [(295.7/15)*500]
4. 7,000 mg is supposed to be threshold for possible liver failure.

Therefore, there is a strong chance that drinking a whole bottle could cause serious health problems, including liver failure. My math or my assumptions may be incorrect so please comment if I've made a mistake. There are a long list of other variables including ingesting food, body weight, pre-existing liver problems, and more that would change this. If you're not sure, please contact the Poison Control hotline at the top of this article.