Taking OTC drugs. Can I take X after I take Y?

OTC means "over the counter". This means drugs that you can buy at the store without a prescription. Some of these are aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen.

If you started off taking X, and X says take every 4 hours, and 4 hours go by, then it's like you have no drug in you, so you can take any other one without worry.

The important concern here is that you take different drugs/things that contain some of the same drug. For example, some cold drugs have multiple drugs in them. It would be the same as taking each one of those. So if you take a cold drug that includes acetaminophen, don't take another drug that ALSO has acetaminophen in it until the first dose "wears off"--enough time has gone by to where you could take another dose of it, based on its directions.

The best approach is to take OTC drugs that have one active ingredient to alleviate your one main symptom. This way you only take what you need and can add other OTC drugs that don't contain the same active ingredient.

For example, "I have a headache" and "my nose is runny". Take an OTC drug for the headache and take an OTC drug for a runny nose, like ibuprofen and diphenhydramine. This way you can treat the symptom that you care about on its own.

NOTE: you cannot take a drug to cure a cold or the flu, you can only treat symptoms. You do not have to treat these symptoms. If you have a symptom such as a headache, of course you want to take a drug to help it. As for a runny nose... if you are not working, then maybe just using tissues is ok for the time being.